“Handsome scoundrel takes after his father in more ways than one,” Tina said, smiling. “Half a day in camp and he’s got the best-looking woman cornered.”

“Pay no attention to your sister, boy,” Ben told

him. “She exaggerates at times.”

And the family, plus one, walked off to have lunch.

Francis Freneau didn’t pull any cucumbers out of his ears, but what he did was just as bad. He sang religious songs with such a pure, sweet, fine tenor voice he damn near had Emil weeping; most of the others were blubbering and snorting with joy.

And then Emil recognized him.

“I knew it!” Emil said. “I knew I’d seen that sucker somewheres before.”

He leaned over and whispered in Brother Matthew’s ear. “I know that son of a bitch! That’s Stanley Ledbetter. He had a finance company in Chattanooga until the state put him out of business; he was runnin’ two sets of books. Then he popped up in Atlanta, selling phony stocks and bonds out of a boiler room. He just got out the state with his ass intact, the cops right on his tail. Then he got him a face lift out in California and was working the schools with a two-bit magic act. Among other things, he got busted for screwin’ the little chickies and was about to stand trial when the bombs came.”

“Hush up,” Matthew said, awe in his voice. “Ain’t his singin’ beautiful?”

Emil whacked Brother Matthew on the side of his head with his fist. “Goddammit, Matthew, listen to me!”

“Ooww!” Brother Matthew said, holding the side of his head. “Shit, Brother Emil, that hurt!”

“Then pay attention, you dumb ass! I know that guy calls himself Francis Freneau.”

“So what?”

“He’s a fraud!”

The look Emil received from Brother Matthew was not a pleasant one. “And you ain’t?”

“That’s neither here nor there you dummy! You and a few others got a pretty cushy job with me, working this scam. You think Ledbetter is gonna keep you on?”

The two of them were joined by a few more of Emil’s Enforcers.

“Ledbetter?” Brother Carl asked.

“Yeah. Stanley Ledbetter.”

Brother Matthew thought about that for a moment. He finally nodded his head in agreement. “We gotta come up with a spectacular miracle, Brother Emil. That’s the only thing that’s gonna save our asses.”

Emil’s face brightened. “You got something in mind?”

“No.”

“Wonderful,” Emil said. “I’m surrounded by yoyos.”

“We can always shoot the son of a bitch,” Brother Carl suggested.

“No, no!” Emil said. “I am opposed to violence. Unless it just absolutely has to be. It’d be so much better if I could best him at his own game.”

“How?” Brother Roger asked.

“If I knew that, you dummy, I wouldn’t be standing here listening to Stanley Ledbetter bellowing songs!”

“How come he’s got all them good-lookin’ chickies and we get stuck with the dogs?” Brother Carl asked, a wistful note in the question. His eyes were on a shapely brunette standing beside Francis Freneau, her eyes glazed over in reverence as Francis crooned.

Of course, the joint she’d just toked on might have had a little bit to do with it.

was “Cause he’s got a dick like a donkey,” Emil said. “He was into porno flicks for a couple of years. You could use that thing of his for a flagpole; I’m telling you.” Emil started smiling and humming and snapping his fingers.

The others waited in silence. They knew that when Emil started behaving like this, an idea was forming in his head.

Either that, or he’d gotten off into the mushrooms again.

“I wonder if the other guys with him are all hung like Stanley?” Emil asked.

“According to Sister Linda they sure are,” Brother Carl said.

“You mean, some of my flock have already begun to betray me?” Emil said.

“They been slippin” crost the Boeuf River for more than a week, now,” Brother Roger said. “We was afraid to tell you, Brother Emil.”

“Echoes of Gethsemane!” Emil moaned. “The Judas bitches have shown their true colors.”

“Naw,” Brother Matthew said. “They’re just lookin’ for a better screw, is all.”

“Cretin!” Emil glared at him. “Never mind. I have a plan. I’ll be gone for a few days. I’ll be in Monroe, looking for … something. I might have to go as far as Shreveport to find it. I don’t know. You’ll come with me, Brother Carl.”

“What are we looking for, Brother Emil?”

Emil smiled. “That will be my secret for a time.”

“Are you going to find a miracle, Brother Emil?” Brother Roger asked.

“I better,” Emil said grimly.

“Our people are being forced to fall back,”

Khamsin was informed. “The Rebels have booby-trapped nearly everything that can be wired to explode. Our hospitals are rapidly filling up with the wounded and maimed.”

“How are you getting them across the river?”

“We’re not. That would take too long. We’re setting up field hospitals south of Interstate Twenty.”

“Have the Rebels tried to storm the hospitals?”

“No, sir. They have not. They are not known for doing that.”

“How noble of them,” Khamsin said bitterly. He turned in his chair to gaze out the window. The bitterness in his soul had manifested itself in his mouth. His tongue held the taste of copper.

“Disgusting!” Khamsin said. “We have conquered half the known world, and are halted in our tracks by a band of rag-tag Americans. Disgusting!” he repeated.

Khamsin knew perfectly well that his forces outnumbered the Rebels by at least twenty-five to one; yet his forces, since the start of the invasion, had known only defeat. It was humiliating and appalling. Khamsin had conquered almost the whole of South Carolina with ease. Then Ben Raines and his Rebels had stepped into the picture, and that ease had turned to agony.

And what was worse, Khamsin did not know how to stop the tide of defeat. Little two-bit units of Rebels were stopping his superior and most elite forces at every crossroads. Outgunned and out-manned, the Rebels were drawing blood at every encounter, and then the shadowy bastards just seemed to melt into the landscape. And woe be unto any who attempted to follow the Rebels. For almost every time that happened, those who followed were never seen again.

Hamid wanted to say to Khamsin: We have the state of South Carolina. Let’s be content with it. Live here and grow stronger before we try General Raines.

But Hamid did not say that. He kept his mouth shut. The Hot Wind gave the final orders. Hamid carried them out.

Khamsin sighed heavily and turned in his chair. “Reinforce my orders, Hamid. No advance. And …” Once more he sighed, the unspoken words sour on his tongue. “Order all units to pull back south of Interstate Twenty. And tell them to be careful in doing so. Touch nothing; it might blow up. Do not, do not engage the enemy unless a confrontation is forced upon them. We’re going to have to rethink our plans.”

“Yes, sir.” Hamid quietly left the room, leaving Khamsin alone with his bitter thoughts.

Hamid silently cursed the day the IPA landed on these hostile shores.

“Good jumpin’ Christ!” Ike said, looking through binoculars, eastward across the Kansas Turnpike. “I don’t believe what I’m seein’. But there it is. Whatever the hell “x”’ is.”

He lowered his binoculars and laughed.

Ben lifted his binoculars, looked, blinked, lowered the field glasses and rubbed his eyes. He lifted the glasses to his eyes and looked again. “That’s got to be Big Louie.”

Tina lifted her field glasses and took a look. She quickly lowered the binoculars and turned away, giggling.

Dan peered through his lenses and said, “My word! It looks like a purple blob. General, do you see anyone that you recognize?”

“Not a soul. If this Ashley person is there, I sure don’t know him, or remember him.”

“You don’t suppose they are one and the same?” Ike questioned. “Big Louie and Ashley?”

“I certainly would never forget a sight like that” Ben said.

“One wouldn’t think so,” Dan muttered, then he too turned away to hide his laughter.

“Oh, yoo-hoo!” Louie called, standing across the four lanes of concrete. He was resplendent in his purple robe and white patent-leather pumps.

“I want to hear Dad say, “Yoo-hoo,”” Tina said.

The entire line of Rebels closest to Ben all began laughing.

Buddy turned away so the general would not see him laughing.

“Very funny,” Ben said, eyeballing his kids and his field commanders, all of whom were either laughing or red faced trying to suppress laughter.

“I say, general,” Dan said. “I have this lovely pink sash I was saving to give to a lady back at Base Camp One. But considering the gravity of this momentous meeting, I could loan it to you. You’d look perfectly precious with it tied about your waist.”

That did it. Everyone started laughing.

Ben took the ribbing with a smile on his face. When the laughter had subsided, he asked, “What do you hear from the Scouts, Ike?”

“Nothing, Ben. They’ve been searching the other side through long lenses since dawn. If anyone’s over there, they’re well hidden.”

“I say!” Big Louie called, waving a hand. “Are you there, Supreme Commander Raines?”

“Yes!” Ben shouted. “Right here … Louie.”

“Is the terrain firm?” Louie called. “If not, I’ll have some of my bearers carry me across for the meeting.”

Ben sighed. “Just think,” he said. “All I ever wanted was to write books.”

“Do you want me to have some Rebels tote you across, Ben?” Ike asked.

“Ike!”

“Just a suggestion, supreme commander.”

“Jesus,” Ben muttered. “I don’t believe you’ll have to utilize bearers, Louie!” Ben shouted. “The sun has dried the ground fairly well.”

“Oh, good!” Louie shrieked. “Shall we begin our trek toward an everlasting place in history, general?”

“By all means, Louie. Here I come.”

“What for me! Wait for me! One, two, three, go!” Louie stepped out on the concrete.

One man was with him, his entourage left behind.

“Come on, boy,” Ben said to Buddy. “Let’s assure your place in history, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Father and son began the walk across the lanes of hot concrete. Big Louie was carefully mincing his way toward them.

“Has it occurred to you, Father, that this might be some sort of setup?”

“It has occurred to me, boy.”

“We’re certainly going to be wide open out here.”

“That we are. Any suggestions?”

“If shooting starts, head for the low place in the area between the lanes.”

“The median.”

“Sir?”

Ben thought hard for a few seconds. Buddy was probably about six or seven when the Great War came. He had probably never heard the term “median” before. “It’s called the median.”

“Oh. I knew that, of course, from reading highway

signs. But why is it called that?”

“Because median means middle.”

“I see. Well, if shooting starts, we head for the median. That will give us the best protection from gunfire coming from the east.”

“Good thinking.” Ben smiled.

“Thank you, sir. Although I would imagine that had already occurred to you.”

Buddy noted Ben’s smile.

Louie had stopped on the shoulder of the northbound lane.

“Why is he stopping there?” Buddy whispered.

“So he can command the higher ground,” his father told him. “That way, he can look down at us.”

“Ah! He really believes himself to be a king, doesn’t he?”

“It would appear that way. But that’s good, Buddy. Let him have the high ground. He presents the better target. If it is a setup, he just might take lead intended for us.”

“Unless we are all the intended targets,” Buddy said.

And that was something that Ben had not thought of. He glanced at his son. “Why would you say that, boy? And slow down; give us a few more seconds to reach him.”

“Well, the man is obviously a fool. Perhaps the real power behind the throne is weary of him. And this way he, or she, we really don’t know, do we, could not only get rid of Louie, but the immediate enemy as well. And that’s you, Father.”

“Very good, Buddy. Excellent. Head’s up, son.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My dear General Raines!” Louie gushed. “At last, two of the world’s great leaders come together to forge our places in the still-to-be-written history of

this devastated land.”

“Louie,” Ben said.

“And who is this handsome lad with you, General Raines?”

“My son, Buddy.”

“Oh my, you are a magnificent specimen, aren’t you?” Louie eyeballed Buddy.

“A good enough specimen to have killed four of your followers north of here,” Buddy said.

“Oh?” Louie’s voice softened. “Don’t you feel that was a bit overly dramatic … putting two of their heads up on poles?”

Ben looked at his son. Buddy hadn’t told him about this.

“It got your attention, didn’t it?”

“Yes, it did, Master Buddy. Oh, my, yes, indeed.”

“I thought it might. But you came to speak to my father, not to me.”

“Yes. Thank you for reminding me, young man.”

“What’s on your mind, Louie?” Ben opened the dance.

“A man of few words, eh, general? Very well. You and I joining forces. That’s it as succinctly as I can put it.”

“I don’t think our philosophies will work well together, Louie. I don’t believe in slavery-among other things.”

Louie waved his hand. “Very minor details that can be worked out at a later date, my dear General Raines. The important thing is that we cease this little war between us, before it gets completely out of hand. Don’t you agree, sir?”

“That’s easily accomplished, Louie. You just disband your army and turn loose the slaves and the women and kids and old people you’ve taken for hostages, and then we’ll talk.”

“Oh, my! Has Ashley been a naughty boy again? I wish he would consult me before he goes off on these little tears of his.”

Ben’s eyes caught the glint of sunlight off of metal or glass. In the tall grass on the side of that overpass. Might be a sniper up there, he thought.

“So you didn’t know that Ashley did that, Louie?”

Ben shifted as he spoke, with Buddy following his motion. Now Louie was almost directly between Ben and Buddy and the overpass.

Louie sniffed daintily. “I never become involved in such mundane matters.”

“Oh, I see,” Ben replied. “You’re that sure of Ashley, are you?”

“I’m sure of this: Ashley hates you and has for years. Why, would you believe that he wanted you killed during this meeting?”

“What a naughty, naughty boy!” Ben said.

Buddy looked at him, oddly.

“What does he hate me, Louie?”

“Oh … I don’t know! Some silly little schoolboy matter of eons ago.” He waved his hand. “Forget about Ashley. You’re talking to me.”

“Sorry, Louie. But I like to be liked by everybody.”

This time, Buddy’s look was not just odd as he glanced at his father. It was downright astonished!

Ben looked at him and winked.

“Well, what about it, Louie?” Ben said.

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

“Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Take it or leave it.”

Louie stamped his pump-clad foot. “You’re just not being a very nice man!”

“That’s the breaks, king.”

Louie began jumping up and down in the middle of the highway, waving his arms and shrieking to

high heaven. His actions startled the man with him.

The sound of the rifle booming reached them just as the slug tore through Louie, exploding the heart.

The man with Louie turned in panic, stepping to one side, that movement putting him directly in front of Ben.

The rifle cracked again. The slug hit the man’s battle harness. More rifles boomed and spat just as Ben and Buddy hit the earth of the median.

“Smoke!” Ike shouted, his voice reaching Ben and Buddy. “Give them cover smoke.”

An explosion momentarily deafened Ben and Buddy, just as the man who had been with Louie seemed to disintegrate before their eyes.

Then something smacked Ben on the back of his head, dropping him into darkness. Chapter 7

The IPA has stopped all forward movement,” Colonel Williams radioed to Cecil. “At least from this side.”

“That’s what my scouts have reported, too,” Cecil radioed back. “What do you make of it?”

In Khamsin’s communications complex, his radio people were struggling to understand the messages, but they were unable to unscramble the transmissions.

Finally, one of them threw his headset to the table. “It’s no use,” he said. “We can’t unscramble it.”

“General,” Joe radioed. “My guess is that we’re fighting the type of war this Hot Wind can’t fathom. And that’s surprising to me, since he was a noted terrorist back in the ‘80’s. I just don’t know what to make of it.”

He’s unsure of himself, Joe. He thought that he could come in here and just walk all over us. But that uncertainty won’t last long. Khamsin may well be the world’s biggest asshole, but he’s no dummy. So we’ve got to keep him off balance.”

“How, sir?”

“By doing what is not expected of us and by keeping up those tactics. Joe, start sending out false

transmissions by walkie-talkie between your units about us planning a major invasion into South Carolina. His listening posts on the other side of the river will pick up those walkie-talkies. We’re going to start infiltrating troops into South Carolina between Augusta and Savannah, and also through the mountain passes of the Sumter National Forest. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll radio back to Base Camp One and have all the spotter planes we can put up into the air flying all over the place. We’ll start sending ground troops into the areas by day, and moving them back out at night. Lots of rattling and banging tanks and APC’S and trucks during the move-in. No noise coming back out at night. Got it?”

Joe laughed. “I got it, general. If we can pull this off, we’ll have that son of a bitch running up and down the state until his tongue hangs out.”

“That’s the idea, Joe. Good luck to you.”

“Luck to you, sir.”

Cecil turned to the operator. “Any word from General Raines?”

“Nothing, sir. I think we’re being jammed from the west. What do you reckon is going on out there?”

“I wish I knew. I really wish I knew.”

Ben opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times. His vision cleared and he could see a group of people gathered around him.

Ike grinned down at him. “Good thing your head is so hard, Ben.”

Groaning, Ben tried to sit up. Hands pushed him back down. “You just keep your ass right where it is, Raines,” Dr. Chase told him. “You took a pretty good lick on the noggin; so just lie still for a time.”

“What happened?” Ben asked. Jesus! but his head hurt.

“Near as we can figure,” Ike said, “that guy wearing the battle harness took a slug into his ammo belt. Slug must have hit a grenade. It exploded his ammo and all the grenades around him. Literally blew him apart. Piece of shrapnel conked you on the noggin.”

“Big Louie?”

“Dead. Must have been a setup all the way.”

“That poor sad foolish man,” Ben said. “He was crazy.”

“Yeah. Well, his troubles are over now,” Dr. Chase said.

Ike said, “I ordered our people in and to hit them hard.”

“The civilian hostages?” Ben asked.

Ike’s eyes clouded briefly. “They’re gonna take some hard hits, Ben.”

“One of us had to make that decision. Where’s Buddy?”

“He’s all right, Dad,” Tina said. “He took some shrapnel in his back, but his wounds are minor. Judy is taking care of him.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, smiling. “I just bet she is. We have any word from Cecil as yet?”

“Not a peep, Ben,” Ike told him. “I think Khamsin’s western people have found our frequencies and are blocking them. Not much we can do about that.”

“Let’s clean it up here and then get the hell moving east. That goddamned Ashley wanted a fight. All right. Give it to him.”

“Yes, sir!” Ike said.

Lines of profanity rolled through Ashley’s brain, coming so hard and fast his tongue would not have

handled them had he attempted to verbalize the filth.

And it was all directed at Ben Raines.

Ashley’s field commanders, all of them, even the top soldier, Colonel West, reported that the squeeze was on from Raines’s Rebels. And they were squeezing hard.

Ashley could not understand how the Rebels seemed to know the exact location of everyone of his companies.

Was that goddamn Ben Raines some sort of mystic?

Ashley sighed in frustration. How could that damned fool with the rifle have missed Ben Raines? An easy shot like that. Incredible.

The only good thing to have come out of the whole affair was that Big Louie was dead. At least that much to the good had been accomplished.

But had it been worth it?

Ashley still hadn’t made up his mind about that.

He wasn’t even certain that to continue fighting was worth the effort. For Ashley knew, deep in his heart, that eventually Ben Raines was going to win.

The only bright spot in the whole ugly mess was that Ashley’s troops were holding the Rebels outside of the areas claimed when Ashley ordered the pull-back. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily due to their bravery. One of his listening posts had intercepted a transmission that brought it all home to Ashley and his men: Ben Raines was going to push them back into Kansas City.

That was Raines’s plan. And that bit of news had been quite enough to drive some steel into the backbone of his men. Nothing like a little directed fear to turn cowards into fighting heroes.

Again, Ashley sighed, wishing there was some way he could get out of all of this and still save face. But

he couldn’t come up with anything.

He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. No one really knew exactly what Kansas City was like. Or really, what it was like from Fort Smith all the way up to Kansas City. That narrow corridor had taken both germ and so-called clean nuclear hits during the Great War. And that zone had been declared hot by the government.

Back when there was a government, that is. Back before the rats and fleas and deadly germs had threatened to wipe out civilization entirely.

For a time, Little Rock had been ruled unsafe; but that had proved to be false information. And a dozen areas between Fort Smith and Kansas City had also proved out to be safe.

But Kansas City proper, and for about thirty to forty miles in any direction extending out from it, and the dozens of tiny towns along a two hundred and fifty miles strip running north to south -No one really know. And damn few had the courage to even venture into those areas. And fewer still ever came out.

But reports that had filtered back from those areas all held one bit of like information: There were some strange creatures roaming about, both animal and human. Or sub-animal and subhuman would be more like it, probably. Ashley didn’t know for sure; he’d never been into those areas.

But he had seen some of the creatures that had been shot and carried back out. They were not pleasant to look at.

Those writers, directors, actors, and makeup people who had put together the science fiction movies had pretty well pegged it right with their descriptions of what might follow after a nuclear war. God-awful-looking men and women and young

people, some with no hair, others with chalk-white eyes; some with hideous bums on their bodies, others grotesquely misshapen. But they all shared this in common, for whatever reason: They hid from the light and came out only at night, to scavenge for food.

All in all, those areas contained some hideous forms of life, and if Ben Raines thought he was going to drive Ashley and his troops into those areas-the man had best rethink his plan. For to a person, male or female, Ashley’s people had said, loudly and clearly, that they would rather die than be driven or pushed back into those unknown fear-producing areas.

Even though no one among them actually knew much about the people who lived there.

But they did know that Ben Raines’s Rebels were not in the habit of taking prisoners.

So what choice did that leave any of Ashley’s people?

None. None at all. Stand or die. That’s all that Raines had left any of them.

All right, then. So be it.

With a sigh of resignation, Ashley stood up, put on his helmet, picked up his M-16, and walked outside. He motioned for an aide to come to him.

“Yes, sir?”

“Where is the force of Rebels commanded directly by Ben Raines?”

“At the junction of Highway Seventy-five and Interstate Thirty-five, sir. Colonel West’s troops are looking them square in the face. And I’m glad it’s West and not me,” he added.

Ashley’s smile was thin. But he knew what the man meant: Colonel West and his men were the best Ashley had. His own people were not even in the same ballpark.

And he also know that Colonel West did not particularly care for him. What the hell was the matter with these professional soldiers, anyway?

Damn high and mighty bunch of moralistic assholes.

But he knew, with a sinking feeling, that if West and his bunch could not contain Raines, it would all be over very quickly, for his own people would fold up like a house of cards.

Ashley said, “The dividing line is Highway Seventy-five?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And in the other areas, our people are holding?”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, smiling grimly. “They don’t have much choice in the matter, do they, sir?”

The look Ashley gave the man was sharp, but he did not chastise him. For after all, the aide was correct. They had absolutely no choice in the matter. None at all.

“You ever been in or close to the Hot Zone?” Ashley asked him.

“Close to it, sir. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go in there.”

Ashley nodded his head. “It’s that bad, is it?”

The aide was silent for a moment, his brow furrowed, remembering.

When he spoke, his voice was soft. “It’s awful, sir. Them so-called clean bombs that the Russians used did save the cities; I mean, the buildings and all that, but they sure screwed up any survivors. Really fouled up their minds and bodies. I’ve seen some of them. I don’t never want to see no more of them. Not ever. I guess no one really knew what them bombs was gonna do, huh, sir?”

“I suppose so. But those … people, for want of a

better word, they can still produce? I’ve heard they can have offspring?”

“Oh, yes, sir. I’ve seen some of the kids. Some of them kids is teenagers, now. They’re some better lookin’ than their parents, some of them, and some of them is worser lookin’. Them real ugly ones have a … well, culture that’s set apart from the others.”

“A culture? What exactly do you mean?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain, sir. Since I ain’t really never been that up-close to none of them. And what I know is just secondhand information.”

“Do try,” Ashley urged.

“Well, they get along, sort of, so I’m told. But they don’t live together, none of them, like no family should. As soon as the kids is old enough to get by on their own, the parents drive them off. Kinda like animals, you know?”

“Ummm. How many of these people would you guess live in the Hot Zone?”

“God, sir. I don’t have no idea. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands of them. It’s that way in all the pockets of the country that was declared hot by the government. Ain’t nobody been in them areas in … well, since the bombs came. Near’bouts fifteen years ago.”

“I see,” Ashley said. At least this conversation was taking his mind off the immediate and clear danger known as Ben Raines. “Yes. But Kansas City, unlike a few other cites on the continent, is not still dangerous, right?”

The aide thought for a moment. “You mean, sir, like in hot from radiation from the bombs that was fired?”

“Precisely.”

“No, sir. Only a couple of cities here in America took hits from regular atomic bombs. And them

areas is gonna be hot forever, I reckon. But these … people, I don’t know what to call them. I think they’re called the Night P. Yes, sir. That’s it. The Night People, they don’t bother no one, unless you wander into the areas they’ve claimed for their own. Then they’ll kill you, or use you for slaves, or something a hell of a lot worser than that.”

Ashley thought he knew what was meant by that last bit. He sat down on the steps and motioned the man to sit with him. “I’ve heard rumors about this for years; I always dismissed it as claptrap. But, then, it’s true!”

“Oh, yes, sir. It’s sure enough true, all right.”

“Then the rumors, facts, now, I suppose, that used to come out of those areas, that talk about these Night People having some sort of program to breed out the sickness … that’s true? And that’s the “worser” that you mentioned?”

“Yes, sir. As far as I know, sir. But there again, no one knows for sure. I doubt if Ben Raines even knows.”

The look the man received from Ashley told him it was time to shut his mouth.

That was further emphasized when Ashley abruptly stood up and walked away without even a second glance.

But Ashley was not angry with the man for throwing Ben Raines’s name at him. He hardly even noticed that. Ashley’s mind was working fast and furious on a plan to keep from being pushed back into the ugly embrace of the Night P.

“They’re holding us, Ben,” Ike radioed to Ben. “And you’re facing the top soldier of the bunch. A Colonel West. I know about him. He’s a good soldier.”

“I just spoke with Dan and Tina; they’re reporting the same thing. Fear seems to be the great motivator, Ike. Ashley’s men must have heard some radio chatter about us driving them back into the hot areas.”

“Orders, Ben?”

“What do you think, Ike?”

“Well, Ben, Big Louie is dead. All the Indian reservations have been returned to the tribes. If we push on, we’ll win, no doubt about that, but a lot of innocent people are going to get killed in the process before we get to Ashley. You wanna try to talk with him, Ben?”

“I can try. Dan? Tina? Are you monitoring this?”

They were.

“Suggestions?” Ben asked.

“I think we need to get to Base Camp One, general,” Dan said. “We’re going to be confronted with two-bit warlords like Ashley forever, it seems, but Khamsin needs to be dealt with right now.”

“All right,” Ben said to his field commanders. “We’ve seized enough weapons from Ashley’s people to rearm the citizens. All we can do is hope that they’ll keep their freedom this time. Hold your positions and cease all actions immediately. I’ll try to make contact with Ashley.”

Ben didn’t tell any of them of the plan he’d been mulling over.

He wasn’t sure Ashley would go for it.

“Misfits,” Billy Bob said, disgust in his voice as he spoke to his company of Rebels. “That’s what Jake called us just before he pulled out. You people feel like misfits?”

“Misfits!” a woman yelled. “Hell, no. Jake took all

the misfits with him.”

The company growled their displeasure at being called misfits.

“I know that I’m sure as hell no misfit,” Billy Bob said. “I feel better than I have in years. I feel like I finally got some purpose, some direction in my life. But I tell y’all what. Let’s just keep the name of misfit. By God, we’ll wear it proudly. Let’s be the best damn bunch of fighters in all of Ben Raines’s Rebel army. How about it?”

“Ben Raines’s Misfits!” a man called. “That sounds damn good to me. That’s us, then. The Misfits!”

The company roared their approval over their new name.

Billy Bob stood back and laughed with them.

The Misfits had been formed.

Billy Bob looked over at Cecil and Lieutenant Mackey and winked.

“It’s working, sir,” Lieutenant Mackey said to Cecil. “They’re beginning to take some pride in themselves. You give me two months and I’ll have the best damn unit in the Rebels.”

“I’ll give you a week,” Cecil replied. “And that is going to be stretching it, lieutenant.”

Mackey looked at the general as if he’d lost his mind. “A week!”

“Five working days, lieutenant. Then you and your company go on the line. Khamsin is not going to fall for our ruse much longer. He’ll put it all together. Believe it. Think you can do it, lieutenant?”

She sighed and shook her head. She caught Billy Bob’s eye and motioned him over.

“Yes, ma’am?”

She informed him of Cecil’s orders.

Billy Bob almost swallowed his chew of tobacco.

Cecil smiled at the man’s antics.

“Good God Almighty!” Billy Bob blurted.

“What can we accomplish in five days, Sergeant Manning?” Mackey asked.

Billy moved his chaw over to another spot in his mouth and said, “Well, we ain’t gonna have no spit and polish parade ground types by then. But I figure they’ll be pretty much of a unit. Y’all are forgettin’ this: They all got combat experience of one sort or another. It’s just that they ain’t never had it in no regular outfit. But we can work it out. Can I make a suggestion, general?”

“Certainly, sergeant.”

“Them that take to the M-16 let “em have it. But them that would rather have their .3030 or .308 or what-have-you, let ‘em be. That’s the weapon they’re familiar withand that’s the one they’ll perform best with. We got good reloading equipment here, and we’ve been doing it for a long time. How about it, general?”

Cecil thought about that for a moment. It would certainly be a strangely armed unit, but what the hell, it was a strange bunch to begin with.

No doubt about that. None at all.

“I like it,” Mackey said.

“All right, Sergeant Manning,” Cecil said. “We can provide .223 and .308 ammo. A lot oi our people prefer the M-14. But the .33 and .243 and .270 ammo is another story. That’s going to be up to you people. And it’s going to take a lot of ammunition; I don’t want anyone to be caught short and endanger the life of someone else. What do you say … can you do it?”

Billy Bob grinned. “We can do it, sir. You just watch us go.”

“Well, get going then, sergeant. Time’s a-wasting!”

Jake had taken his rejects and culls and left the area. But not under his own power. The man had been so thoroughly beaten by Cecil that he was unable to walk. His followers had placed the big man in the bed of a pickup truck after lining the bed with old mattresses for his comfort. And the fleas.

Cecil had seen him off amid threats and much profanity from Jake.

Cecil’s Rebels and the new Misfits had stood by, listening to Jake.

“You ain’t done with me yet, coon,” Jake told Cecil. “You gonna regret the day you come into my territory and started shootin” off your big fat mouth. It ain’t over. I promise you that.”

Cecil stood a few feet from the truck and let Jake vent his rage.

“You can have all them pussies and candy-asses you picked, nigger,” Jake verbally boiled. “I’m glad to be rid of them. And I’ll tell you this: The next time we meet, you bush-ape, I’m gonna spit on your grave.”

“Yes, I saw that movie a long time ago, Jake.”

“Haw?”

“Never mind. Are you all through, Jake? Running that ignorant mouth?”

“If I wasn’t all busted up inside, you burr-head,” Jake blustered, “I’d git up outta this truck and kick your ass!”

“You just won’t learn, will you, Jake?” Cecil said.

“I got learnin’! And you ain’t got no right to call me ignorant.”

“Whatever “learnin” you have, Jake, it was wasted on you.”

“Haw?”

“You’re a fool, Jake. Ben Raines is right and that deputy sheriff was right. People of your ilk will never change. You’re ignorant and you’re proud of it. I’ve offered you a chance to do something decent for once in your life. You refused it. To hell with you, Jake.”

Jake lay on the mattresses and glowered at Cecil through eyes that were swollen almost shut. The man’s mouth was puffy and his jaw swollen. “Why should I change, nigger? I’ve done pretty well the way I is.”

“And you really believe that, Jake?”

“Hale, yes, I do!”

Shaking his head in disgust, Cecil stepped away from the truck and faced the company of men and women who had chosen the name of Misfits. “Any of you people want to go with Jake?” he questioned.

No one moved from the ranks. Not one person even changed expression. Only Billy Bob Manning smiled.

Jake painfully raised himself up on one elbow to glare at the rows of men and women. “You’re be sorry,” he said. “And that’s what you is … Sorry! Cowards and trash. I’m plumb ashamed I ever called any of you friend. But they’ll come a day when ever’ one of you will regret what you’ve done. No one turns his ass to Big Jake lak y’all done and gits away with it. You’ll see. I promise you that.”

Cecil again faced Jake. “Hear me now, Jake. And pay close attention to me. Against the judgement of a lot of people, I’m letting you leave. But I have this bit of advice for you: Find you a little piece of ground and plant a garden. Live very quietly and peacefully. Maintain a very low profile. Give up your plans of ever setting up another warlord state.

And do everything that I’ve told you many many miles from here. For I warn you now: If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you, Jake.”

Under the bruises of his face, Jake flushed. “Big talk, coon. But I don’t think you got the balls to kill me.”

Cecil laughed at him. “That makes you a bigger fool than I first thought, Jake. You think I’m joking. Believe me, I am not. I don’t have much of a sense of humor when it comes to rednecks and white trash, or people of my own color who think like you do. I have offered you a chance to join us. To fight with us, and not against us. You’ve all chosen to turn down my offer. All right. So be it. Now get out!”

There was something in Cecil’s voice that caused Jake to remain silent. Cecil’s eyes were flat and cold, hard looking. But Jake’s eyes burned with a wild hate that would never fade.

And Cecil knew in his heart that someday, perhaps very soon, he would have to kill Jake.

Jake waved his hand, and the driver tried to crank the pickup. It would not start. The driver ground the battery down to nothing. Jake lay in the back and cussed.

“Get a mule,” Cecil ordered. “Get it in harness and pull this wreck out of here.”

No one could find a mule. Cecil looked at the sullen men and women who chose to follow Jake. “Push it out of here,” he ordered.

Pushing and sweating and cussing, a group of men got the pickup rolling while Jake lay in the back, shouting orders and profanity.

“You made an enemy, general,” Billy Bob said to Cecil.

“Yes, I know, sergeant. And I’m ashamed to say that I believe I did it deliberately.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cecil glanced at the sergeant. He couldn’t tell if the man was merely extending military courtesy or agreeing with him.

“You should have shot him, general,” Billy Bob said. “But I reckon you know that you’re gonna have to kill him someday.”

“Yes. I know that, too, sergeant.”

Just as Jake’s pickup truck rounded a corner, Cecil watched as the man lifted his right fist and extended his middle finger to him.

Quite unlike Cecil, he smiled and returned the gesture. Chapter 8

Denise stepped into Ben’s CP. “Ashley is on the radio, general. Says he wants to talk to you.”

“That was quick,” Ben said, looking up. “Must not take Ashley very long to look at a horseshoe.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

Ben smiled and shook his head. “Old joke, Denise.” He stood up and motioned her out ahead of him. Together, they walked to the radio shack.

The young woman behind the maze of equipment handed Ben the mike. “He’s on the horn, sir.”

Ben pressed the key. “Ashley. What can I do for you?”

“You wanted to talk to me, Raines?” said the voice from out of the speaker. “Not the other way around. What’s on your mind?”

Ben listened to the voice. It was just vaguely familiar to him. But still he could not place it. “I’d like to put an end to the fighting, Ashley. How about you?”

“I’m listening, Raines.”

Was that a note of relief in Ashley’s voice? Ben thought so.

“Are you familiar with a Libyan named Khamsin?”

“I’ve heard the name. What about him?”

Ben took a deep breath, then keyed the mike. “We’re both in trouble if he gets a firmer toehold in American. Are you in agreement with that?”

Silence on the other end. Then Ashley said, “Yeah. I’ll agree with that.” What the hell was Raines getting at?

“I’ve got a proposition for you, Ashley. Give it some thought, if you will.”

“Lay it on me, Raines.”

“I’ll level with you, Ashley. I’ve got about three thousand troops with me. You’ve got just a bit less than that. So listen to me. How about us putting hostilities aside and head east, link up to fight this Libyan. How about it, Ashley?”

The offer was so totally unexpected, it caught Ashley completely off balance. He sat in stunned silence for a long moment. He was almost giddy from relief, but didn’t want to appear too anxious. Finally, he said, “You’re fucking serious!”

“Yes, I am, Ashley.”

“But I just tried to kill you, Raines! What kind of crap are you pulling?”

“No crap, Ashley. I’m on the level. Are you familiar with the old saying about politics making for strange bedfellows?”

“Yeah,” Ashley said slowly. “And the same could be said for war, right, Raines?”

“That’s about it.”

“And if I take you up on this offer? And we kick this Libyan’s ass. What then?”

“Ashley, I honestly don’t know. We’re going to have to talk about that.”

In his own radio room, the mike off, Ashley grunted, thinking: The son of a bitch is honest, if nothing else. He leaned back in his chair, his mind working hard. He knew Raines was totally correct

about the Libyan. Crazy ex-terrorist had kicked ass all over the world before coming to the shattered land that was once called the United States of America.

And another thought came to Ashley’s mind: United we stand.

“Well,” he muttered, “it’s a way out of this box I’m in. I can always split the scene once out of here.”

He keyed the mike. “Raines? How do you know I won’t turn on you? Maybe join up with the Libyan?”

“I don’t.”

Ashley sighed, recalling his daddy’s words: A man who has no honor has nothing, son. Of course, Ashley remembered, his daddy underpd the help and was a fucking crook. “Well, Raines,” he said, the mike open, “I wouldn’t do that. For the simple reason that I don’t trust that rag-head any more than I do you.”

“I understand.”

“And something else, Raines: You have to know that I hate your goddamned guts!”

“I think you’ve made that abundantly clear, Ashley.” His reply was very dry.

“And if I take you up on this deal, Raines, I don’t want to see your goddamned ugly face. Ever! I might just decide to hell with it and shoot you on the spot. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly clear, Ashley. But would you object to clearing up one little matter?”

Ashley laughed, knowing what was coming. “What is it, Raines?” “Why do you hate me?”

Ashley chuckled. The son of a bitch really didn’t remember him. Good. “Don’t you just love a mystery, Raines. Let’s just say this: You whipped my ass once. But you’ll never do it again. Enough about that. We’ve got a problem with logistics.”

“We can work that out. You want me to take care of it?”

“Suits me.”

“How about your men, Ashley?”

“What about them?”

“Will they fight?”

Ashley paused for a moment. “All right, Raines. You seem to be leveling with me, so I’ll give it to you straight. First Battalion is commanded by Colonel West. They’re solid professional-all the way. That’s what he and his men do for a living. Fight other folk’s wars. Second Battalion is average. Third Battalion is the pits. That answer your question?”

“I appreciate your honesty, Ashley.”

“Fine. Just don’t put any of them into a position of having to take orders from some damned nigger.”

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind. I’ll be back in touch with you first thing in the morning. That all right with you?”

Another pause from Ashley. “Yeah. Fine. If I’m gone, Colonel West will be in charge.”

Ashley signed off.

Ben laid the mike aside and looked up at Denise.

“You’re a man of many surprises, general.”

“Not really,” Ben said with a smile. “There is always the chance that Khamsin’s men will kill Ashley. If that’s the case, then I won’t have to do it.”

She laughed aloud. “How about a devious man, general?”

“I’ve sure as hell been called worse.”

“It was a good move, Ben,” Ike said. “I didn’t even thing of doing anything like that.” Ben smiled. Tina looked at him curiously. “Why are you smiling, Dad?”

“He had no choice in the matter, people. He knew damn well he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this fight. All I did was give him an out.”

“And a chance to save face,” Dan added. “A fine move, general.”

“Don’t compliment him too much,” Dr. Chase said. “It’ll go to his head.”

When the laughter had died down, Ben said, “But I still don’t know who the man is. The voice is somewhat familiar. But I just can’t put a face to it.”

“You think this might all be a game to him, general?” Dan asked.

Ben shrugged. “I hope not. But hell damn sure find out when his troops face Khamsin that it’s not a very funny joke. If this Ashley actually leads his troops.”

Ike nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah. I’ve thought along those same lines, Ben.”

Dan said, “I’ve seen some of Ashley’s troops who were solid professional. Others that were good for no more than cannon fodder.”

“Does anybody have any additional information on this Ashley person?” Ben asked.

“About your height, Dad,” Tina said. “A bit heavier. Just about the same age.”

“Comes from the Deep South,” Chase said. “What kind of accent did you detect while speaking with him, Ben?”

“Louisiana or Mississippi, I’d guess.”

“Great fan of Patton,” Ike said. “But unlike Pat-ton, not a very good solider. From what we’re able to learn from questioning both civilians and captured troops, Ashley is pretty much of a showboat. Pearl-handled forty-fives, shiny helmet, riding britches … the whole nine yards. A very cruel man, from what I can gather.”

“Have to be cruel, or crazy, or both, to hook up with Big Louie and then plot to kill him. Right?” Ben stood up. “Have all hostilities ceased?”

“Not a shot being fired, Ben,” Ike said.

“Good.” Ben held up a piece of paper. “According to this communiqu@eI was just handed, a few minutes ago, Ashley has put Colonel West in charge. Now whether that means Ashley has pulled out, I don’t know. I’m to meet with Colonel West in Topeka in a few hours.” He glanced at Ike. “How did Buddy perform?”

“Top soldier, Ben. Very smart. Cautious, but not too. His grandfather must have been quite a soldier. He sure taught the boy some good moves.”

“How are the troops accepting him?”

“Fine and dandy, Ben. They all seem to like him and most look to him for orders.” Ike smiled and braced himself. He had a strong hunch what might be coming at him from Ben.

He was right.

Ben glanced sharply at his friend. “You give him any rank?”

“Nope. But he’s your son, Ben. You know damn well that a lot of Rebels-hell, most of them-are going to look at Buddy in a different light.”

Ben nodded his head. “Yeah. Okay. Sure, you’re right.” To Dan: “Have you observed him, Dan?”

“Yes, sir. He’s a natural leader and natural soldier. No matter what group he joins, they all seem to instinctively defer to him. He doesn’t ask for that; it just happens. You’ve got the same quality about you. He is quite fortunate that he inherited it. And from what I’ve been able to hear and observe, he conducts himself admirably.”

“Quite a glowing recommendation, Dan,” Ben

said, his tone very, very dry.

“Thank you, sir,” the transplanted Englishman said with a straight face. “I thought it read well myself.”

Ben glared at him. It bounced right off of Dan.

“Buddy will damn well earn any rank,” Ben said. “Just like anybody else.”

“Oh, quite right, general,” Dan said.

“Pip, pip, and all that,” Ike said.

Ben took a step toward Ike, and Tina stepped between them. “Dad, the Rebels are putting the leadership role on Buddy. He isn’t asking for it. It’s like Dan said; he is a natural. And a lot of Rebels want to follow him.”

“And? So?” Ben demanded, considerable heat in his voice.

“Aw, shit, Ben!” Ike flared. “The kid deserves a team. He’s that good. Buddy is as good as any soldier I’ve ever seen. Even as good as a lot of Seals,” he added, a wicked glint in his eyes.

Dr. Chase laughed and rubbed his hands together. “This is going to get good here any minute.”

Ben ignored the doctor. “If I decide to give Buddy any rank, Ike, that will be solely my decision to make.”

Dan backed up, pulling Tina back with him, getting them both out of the way.

“American special troops can be quite boorish,” he said to her. “Don’t you know?”

“Oh, quite,” she said, grinning. She knew that Ben and Ike occasionally had to clear the air between them. But they both knew the other’s capabilities when it came to gutter fighting, and no blows had ever been landed.

Yet.

“That’s your ass, Ben.” Ike stood his ground. “That would be solely my decision to make.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Ben roared.

“You assigned Buddy to me, oh great supreme commander, General Poo-bah! And if I decide to give him a team, that is my decision to make. And it’s already done been decided. I gave him a recon team this morning and told him to have at it.”

“Without consulting me!” Ben yelled.

“I don’t need to consult you!” Ike returned the yell. “I give folks grade all the goddamn time.”

“Well, Buddy is not just anybody! Or have you forgotten that?”

“No, I ain’t forgot jack-shit! I don’t give a good goddamn if he’s your son or the great-great grandson of Cochise. If he can do the job, that’s all that counts.”

Dan, Tina, and Dr. Chase stood smiling. They’d seen this little drama unfold many times in the past. Denise sat on a camp stool and remained very still, not knowing what to make of all this shouting between the generals.

“I’m surprised you didn’t give the kid a fucking division, General McGowan!”

“Well, by God, General Raines, I just might do that someday. Thanks for the suggestion. But for the time being, I gave him a platoon to ramrod, and he’s doin’ a damn fine job of it, too. Now if you don’t like it, shove it up your tush!”

Chase burst out laughing.

Both Ike and Ben gave the doctor hard looks.

Dr. Chase said, “Both of you are behaving like children.”

“Who the hell asked you!” Ike yelled, beating Ben to the words.

“I think a cup of tea would be nice right about now,” Dan suggested.

“You know what you can do with your tea?” Ike told him.

“Drink it, preferably,” Dan replied.

“That ain’t exactly what I had in mind,” Ike told him.

“All right!” Chase put an end to the bickering. He glared first at Ben, then at Ike. “I’ve a good mind to exercise my authority as chief medical officer and relieve both of you of command and put your asses in the hospital for observation. And you both, by God, know that I can and will do just that.”

“That might not be a bad idea, doctor,” Tina said, smiling. “They are showing signs of stress, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What the hell do I have going here?” Ben said. “A revolt?”

Denise stood up. “May I please say something?”

Everybody looked at her. She had sat so quietly, they had forgotten she was among them.

“A voice of reason would certainly be welcome here,” Dr. Chase said.

“Of course, you may say something, my dear,” Dan told her. “But don’t be too alarmed. They’ve been doing this for years.”

“Well,” Denise said. “It seems to me that you, General Raines, are concerned more with saving face than you are the welfare of your son. It might reflect badly on you if Buddy should fail in his leadership role. And you, General McGowan, should have informed General Raines of what you planned to do. As for Buddy, I thought that field promotions went on all the time, in any army. That’s all I have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make some preparations for the trip to Topeka. Thank you for allowing me to speak.” She turned and walked outside.

Chase jerked a thumb toward the departing

Denise. “I like her. Nothing like a bit of reason amid chaos.” He turned and followed Denise outside.

“Come, my dear.” Dan took Tina’s arm. He looked at Ben and Ike. “Ta-ta, all!” he said cheerfully.

Ben rode in an open Jeep up the Kansas Turnpike toward Topeka, Denise driving. Out of pure spite, Ike had assigned Buddy and his team as point for Ben.

Ben pointed at the Jeep a few hundred yards ahead of them on the cracked old turnpike. “Doesn’t that boy know how to wear a beret?” he bitched, referring to Buddy’s headgear: a dark red bandana. He looked at Denise. “What’s so damn funny?” he asked, noting her smile.

“Y. You act like a big ol’ bear with a sore paw. You’re so proud of Buddy you’re about to bust. But the only way you can show it is to sull up and act ticky.”

“Ticky? I am behaving ticky?”

“Uh-huh.”

Ben grunted.

She laughed aloud.

Ben smiled, his mood lifting. “Ike and I have to clear the air every now and then, Denise. Don’t worry about us. I just don’t want Buddy to fall flat on his face, that’s all.”

“I think, Ben, that if Buddy gets in over his head, he’s the type who will admit it and call for help.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. He is a good-looking kid, isn’t he?”

Her laughter rang out in the open air of late summer. “Yes, Daddy.”

“General Raines,” the man said, holding out his

hand. “I’m Colonel West.”

Ben shook the offered hand. He inspected the man. In his late forties, Ben guessed. Stocky and appearing in good physical shape. Very competent looking. “Might as well get right to the point, colonel. Clear the air.”

The legendary Ben Raines, West thought. Big mean-looking bastard. Be interesting serving under him. “Yes, sir. I expect there will be some changes made.”

“A few, for sure. But nothing you can’t work with. Where is Ashley?”

“Pulled out, sir. Left last night. Took his personal company with him.” He did not say he was glad to see the pompous bastard leave.

Ben smiled. “Ashley appears to be a very elusive type.”

“And he hates your guts, general,” West told him bluntly.

“For reasons I have yet to fully understand. How about you, colonel?”

“How do I feel about you?”

“Yes. Let’s be perfectly honest with each other. Our lives might well depend on it.”

“All right. Let’s put it this way, General Raines. I don’t like niggers, I don’t like spies, I don’t like Jews, I don’t like Indians. I think white people are the superior race; all others are inferior. But I’m smart enough to know that there are exceptions to every rule. And I have respect for those exceptions.”

“Gen. Cecil Jefferys?”

“One of those exceptions I mentioned. I have the utmost respect for him. I would certainly take his orders.”

“That’s good to know. You probably will be taking orders from him. Go on, colonel.”

“I don’t believe that inferiors should be mistreated.”

“But you endorsed the slavery that went on here.”

West shrugged. “I took no part in that. Although I certainly knew it was going on.”

Ben smiled. “Just following orders, Colonel West?”

“That’s one way of putting it, General Raines.”

“Go on.”

“I didn’t like everything that Ashley did; and I sure as hell didn’t like anything that fag Louie did. But for me and my men, it was the best game in town. So to speak. General, I’ll come right up front and say that I don’t believe that I could ever live under your rules; the way you and your Rebels believe. But for this operation, I’ll take orders and carry them through to the best of my ability.”

“Thank you, colonel. That is certainly clearing the air, all right. But let’s get it all said. Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I am a professional soldier. I’ve been a soldier since I was seventeen. Thirty years, sir. I think we’re about the same age. Give or take a few years. Ashley might well be a borderline nut case, but he’s a good organizer. He needed an army, I needed a job. That’s all there is to that.”

“I appreciate your candor, colonel. I didn’t believe Louie or Ashley were calling all the shots.”

West smiled. “Louie was a poor, pitiful fool, general. Ashley is a piss-poor soldier. But like I said, he’s a good organizer; a good manager. I let Ashley think he was calling the shots-and to his credit, he did call a few-but First Battalion is all mine. They are the top soldiers. Solid professionals. Second and Third Battalions are, well …” He moved his right hand, palm down, from side to side.

Iffy.

“I get the picture, colonel. All right. Of the Second and Third, which is the best?”

“Second,” he answered quickly. “The Third is a bunch of losers.”

Ashley had been honest, Ben thought. “Go on, colonel.”

“The only reason Second and Third fought as well as they did was out of pure fear, general. They didn’t want to get pushed back into Kansas City.” He smiled. “Neither did I.”

“The Hot Zone?”

“It’s called that, general. But that’s a misnomer. The area is not hot. And my compliments on a damned fine field plan, general. Eventually, you would have broken through my lines and the Second and Third would have folded up.”

Ben nodded his head. “That’s all behind us, colonel. You say Kansas City is not hot?”

“Not as far as radiation goes, general. I guess those so-called “clean bombs” the Russkies came up with really worked.” He smiled a smile that only another soldier would have understood. “Real shame that none of them got to see it.”

Ben returned the rough smile. Despite what the man represented, he found himself liking this Colonel West. He made no excuses for what he was.

“The reason I might be staring, colonel, is this: You don’t speak or conduct yourself like a man who could condone the burning alive of another human being. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong in that assessment, Colonel West.”

West grimaced and shook his head. “Barbaric, general. Good God, don’t put me in that category. Neither I nor my men had anything to do with that. Oh, we knew about it; we can’t be excused for that. Or forgiven, if there is a God. I am a soldier, general.

A mercenary, if you wish, but still a soldier. Certainly the universal soldier. I’m not ashamed of it. Ashley and Louie offered good food and gear, comfortable surroundings for me and my men. And since the collapse of the government, money is useless. So it’s the small amenities that now count.” West grinned. “And, General Raines, speaking of that, I believe you did a bit of mere work yourself, did you not, before becoming a writer?”

Ben threw back his head and laughed aloud at that. “I sure did, colonel. I sure did. Come on, Colonel West. I want to meet your men. As philosophies go, we might be far apart. But as soldiers, we think alike. You’d better watch me, colonel. I’m awfully persuasive. I just might have you coming over to my way of thinking, voluntarily, if you’re not careful.”

Colonel West grinned. “Don’t count on it, general. Personally, I find myself liking you as a man, as a leader of troops. But I do not believe in the mixing of races.”

“Oh, we’re going to have a good time, colonel!” Ben said. “I can just see it. I do love a spirited debate.” Chapter 9

The Misfits had been issued Rebel uniforms, brought in from the North. And much to Cecil’s and Lieutenant Mackey’s delight and surprise, the Misfits were beginning to look and act like a military unit. They had a long way to go, of course, but they were getting there.

“It’s a miracle,” Lieutenant Mackey said.

“They just needed some direction in their lives,” Cecil said. Maybe that deputy sheriff was only half right, Cecil thought, clinging to part of his dream.

He said as much aloud.

Mackey looked at him. “You’re forgetting about Big Jake, aren’t you, sir?”

“Thanks for bringing me back to reality, lieutenant. No, I haven’t forgotten about that cretin. But we salvaged this much, didn’t we?” He pointed at the Misfits.

“They weren’t human filth to start with, sir.”

Cecil sighed. “I suppose not.”

Since no one in the Rebel Army, from command to private, gave a flying flip for any type of close-order drill, that was not stressed. What was being taught,

in the hot, exhausting days, stretching fourteen to sixteen hours at a time, was teamwork, the care of weapons, stealth, guerrilla tactics-as much as could be taught in five days-and pride.

And Billy Bob and Lieutenant Mackey drove themselves just as hard as they drove the Misfits.

And they found themselves getting a bit closer than sergeant and lieutenant should. But since that was not against the rules in the Rebel army, they just let nature take its course.

And May, Lieutenant Mackey’s nickname-she refused to tell anyone her real name-as Cecil said to her once, “Had a real nice shine to her, now.”

Since Lieutenant Mackey never really knew how to take General Jefferys, she kept her mouth shut. The general had sort of a weird sense of humor.

But he cleared that up on the fourth day of training. “Hadn’t you better tell Billy Bob that your mother was half black, May?”

Now May knew what Cecil had meant when he chose the word “shine.”

“He knows,” she said.

Cecil smiled and needled her. “And you mean to tell me that Georgia Cracker doesn’t care?”

“Said he didn’t. He said there wasn’t a Georgia anymore. No Mason-Dixon line. No American flag. No nothing, except for people. He said it was way past time to bury the hate, and anyone who still carried it.”

“Well,” Cecil said. “That Cracker is quite a philosopher, isn’t he?” Putting the needle to her.

“General,” May said, standing up straight and looking Cecil smack in the eyes.

“Yes, lieutenant?”

“Don’t you ever call Billy a Cracker again!”

Cecil smiled. “All right, May. I surely won’t.” Cecil walked off, whistling “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.”

Billy Bob had slipped easily back into his former role as a Marine Corps sergeant. And the man was proving to be invaluable. And not just with May. The Misfits, to a person, all liked him and, so far, at least, he had experienced no discipline problems.

Jake, so it seemed, had taken his pack of losers and dropped out of sight. But Cecil had a gut feeling that Jake had not gone far and they would meet again.

Khamsin’s men were being kept busy running up and down the South Carolina side of the river, reinforcing units here, pulling people out of position there, all due to the seemingly never-ending talk of Cecil’s upcoming “invasion.”

The Rebels had intercepted several radio messages between Khamsin and his field commanders, and Khamsin, to put it mildly, was highly pissed-off. “Son of a bitch!” Khamsin shouted, although the use of profanity was forbidden in the teachings of his religion. Terrorism was all right, but profanity was not. “I’m beginning to believe, Hamid,” he said, calming himself, “that there never was any invasion planned.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“It’s a trick on the Rebels’ part. They’re buying time and that’s all they’re doing. There is no impending invasion.” He spun around to face the window of his office. He could scarcely conceal his rage. “The black general has made fools of us, Hamid. And I won’t soon forget or forgive that.” He turned slowly

to look at Hamid. “But why did he want a little more time?”

“Waiting for reinforcements, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. But if that is the case, why is he shifting the location of his base camp? And we know from recent fly-bys, what was called Base Camp One is now nearly deserted; everything is being moved west.”

“Then he has something else in mind,” Hamid said. Hamid’s speculations posed no threat to Mohammed the Prophet.

“What?” Khamsin asked.

“I don’t know, sir.”

Khamsin cursed again, silently.

“But our recon teams reported that he is training a group of people in the city of Athens.”

“They saw this with their own eyes?”

“No, sir. They captured a civilian woman and tortured the information out of her, then killed her.” Torture was all right, too. Sort of like bombing abortion clinics for God and fucking for virginity. “A warlord named Jake something-or-the-other had lived there for a year or so. This General Jefferys came in, whipped the warlord

…”

 

Khamsin waved the man silent. He was thoughtful for a moment. “Wait, wait!” he said. “I don’t understand something here. What do you mean, Hamid … he whipped the warlord? Whipped him how?”

“With his fists, sir.”

“A general fought a person with his fists!”

“Yes, sir.”

“How crude. Go on, Hamid.”

“The woman told our recon team that Jake challenged General Jefferys to a fight, some sort of winner-take-all affair. One would have to assume that

type of thing is quite common in this primitive land, even before the Great War. Then, with several hundred people watching, the general beat this Jake person unconscious with his fists. Then General Jefferys threw out about half of the inhabitants; they left with this Jake. These people have such strange names. The others were formed into a new unit of the Rebel army.”

“To be used as what?”

Hamid lifted his shoulders. “That, I do not know, sir.”

Khamsin smiled. “Conditions are becoming desperate for General Jefferys, Hamid. That is surely the reason for his taking on of green troops.” He walked to a large wall map and stared at it for a long moment. “What do our teams report about Atlanta?”

“A place to avoid at all costs, sir. It is inhabited by what are called the Night P.”

Khamsin nodded his head. He knew about those people. “The survivors and the offspring of the bombings. The same in Europe and South America as here. Then it’s true; they’re moving into the cities across the land?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Advise our field patrols to stay away from the larger cities. Those people are surely unclean. We’ll have to deal with them, of course, but not now. One step at a time for us. Hamid, start moving our people into Georgia, using the southern route. Bring them up and form them along Interstate Twenty, east to west.”

“How many troops, sir?”

Khamsin stared at the map for so long Hamid thought he had forgotten his being there. Khamsin

turned and announced dramatically, “All of them, Hamid. We are going to take Georgia!”

“Found it!” Emil yelled, holding up a small box.

“What is it, Brother Emil?” Brother Carl cried happily. Whatever pleased Emil surely pleased the Great God Blomm. So everything was just hunky-dory.

“A miracle, Brother Carl.” They were standing in the rubble and litter of what had once been a fine hospital in Monroe, Louisiana. In what used to be the nut wing.

Brother Carl looked at the box. “That’s a miracle, Brother Emil. You could have fooled me. It looks like a box!”

Emil looked at Brother Carl. The guy was as loyal as a cocker spaniel and a damn good bodyguard, but a little bit short when it came to brains. “Our great and magnificent Blomm instructed me to come to this place. I am acting on Blomm’s orders, Carl. And this package and its contents are to be our secret. When it’s time for me to inform the others, Brother Matthew and Brother Roger, Blomm will let me know. Is that understood?”

“Oh, yes, sir, Brother Emil. I gotcha.”

Emil glanced out a broken window. Still about an hour before full dark. He didn’t want to get caught inside the city limits at night. For even in the small cities, that group of misshapen and deformed and totally weird bunch known as the Night People had gathered. Why they chose the cities was still a mystery to Emil; but he knew firsthand, having almost been captured by them, that you damn sure didn’t want to get trapped inside the cities after dark.

For that’s when the Night People came out to prowl.

Emil bounced the package from hand to hand and smiled. Stanley Ledbetter aka Francis Freneau, was about to discover that when it came to running scams, he was up against a master of the trade.

Emil chuckled softly.

“What’s in the box, Brother Emil?” Brother Carl said, hopping up and down. “Huh? Huh? Come on, tell me, please! You know I get the hives when I get nervous.”

“It’s a drug, Carl. The Great God Blomm told me where to find it.”

“A miracle drug, huh?”

“Sort of, Carl.”

“Does it make you feel good?”

“It ain’t gonna make Francis Freneau feel worth a shit.”

“I don’t understand, Brother Emil. Does it cure the hives?”

“No, Carl. It’s a drug that doctors used to give … certain people. It reduces the sex drive.”

“Huh?”

“It means,” Emil said with a sigh, “that if you was to take some of this stuff, you wouldn’t be able to get a hard-on.”

“Ohh!” Brother Carl said, grabbing at his crotch. “Why would anybody want to take something like that?”

“I don’t think anybody ever took any of this stuff voluntarily,” Emil patiently explained. He looked at the expiration date on the box. Out of date, naturally, but that was no big deal. He’d just triple the dosage. And then he’d see what Francis could do with a limber fire hose.

Nothing, he thought, smiling. He could just sit there and look at that donkey dick.

“You’re so smart, Brother Emil,” Brother Carl said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you to guide me.”

Emil smiled. “Carl, stick with me, kid, and we’ll soon have all the …” Nuts and fruitcakes and cult followers and banana cream pies “… world at our feet. When word of this miracle gets around, we’ll have it made, Brother Carl.”

“Oohhh!” Brother Carl gushed all over Emil.

Emil patiently brushed the spittle off the sleeve of his robe.

Carl tugged at the robe after taking a look outside, “let’s get out of here, Brother Emil. We don’t wanna get caught here after dark.”

Emil nodded. He knew that a large hospital complex would be an ideal spot for the Night People to hole up in during the daylight hours. They were probably the ones who trashed the place, looking for medicines. Poor misshapen and twisted bastards would take anything in hopes of relieving their condition. But Emil knew the only thing that would help them was death.

Emil put the package into his knapsack and slipped it over his shoulders, adjusting the straps. He picked up his rifle.

“Let’s split, Brother Emil.”

Both of them breathed a sigh of relief as they walked out of the hospital and into the sunlight of late summer. Both of them held their weapons at the ready, fingers just off the trigger. They walked to Emil’s car, a twenty-five-year-old black limousine. They got in and locked all the doors. Emil cranked it up and checked the gas gauge.

“Crap, Brother Carl. We’re almost out of gas.”

Carl looked out the dusty window and shuddered. Dusk was no more than fifteen or twenty minutes away. “And we used all the gas we had in the can, Brother Emil.”

“We’ll try that old station up there,” Emil said, pointing.

But the storage tanks were dry.

“What are we gonna do, Brother Emil?” Carl asked.

“Don’t panic,” Emil said. “There are lots of stations in this burg.”

“But we ain’t got much time “fore dark!”

There was panic in Brother Carl’s voice. And for good reason. He knew what happened to people who were taken by the Night P.

“Steady, Brother Carl.” Emil tried to calm the man’s fear. “Blomm is with us.”

Emil believed that about as much as he did in sweet potatoes lining up and doing the can-can.

They pulled into another station, the limo just about running on fumes. The storage tanks were empty.

The fuel needle indicated they were slap out of gas.

And the shadows were creeping around them, andwiththe shadows, hooded figures could be seen.

“They’re out there, Brother Emil!” Carl whispered.

“I see them, Carl,” Emil replied. His heart was beating so fast and so hard he thought it might burst.

“Get us a miracle, Brother Emil,” Carl urged. “You can do it. Call on Blomm.”

Poor simple bastard, Emil thought. Well, Carl’s saved my ass more than once. Now it’s time for me to save his.

“Stand by me, Carl,” Emil heard himself saying.

“I’ll get us out of this mess.”

Carl was too frightened to even reply.

Emil and Carl sat in the limo and watched as the hooded figures drew closer.

Emil pissed in his underwear.

Emil lowered his window and stuck the muzzle of his automatic rifle outside. “You come any closer and I’ll blow your asses off!” he shouted.

The line of hooded figures stopped their advance. Several of them huddled together, their voices low in the dusk; too low for Emil to hear what they were whispering about.

“Back off, I say!” Emil shouted. What the hell? he thought. Might as well give it a try. “I am the earthbound spiritual messenger of the Great God Bloom. I command you all in his name to carry your asses on outta here!”

“That’s tellin” “em, Brother Emil,” Carl whispered. “Blomm’ll strike ‘em down.”

For the umpteenth time since he started his present scam, Emil wished to hell he had thought of something else. Blomm was getting a bit wearing. Not to mention hard in keeping up a good front.

“We come with peace and love in our hearts,” said a female voice out of the gathering purple shadows. “We mean no harm to anyone.”

“Yeah?” Emil shouted. “That’s what Kong said to what’s-her-name, too. Drop them hoods so I can see your faces!”

The line of robed and hooded people pushed back their hoods. Emil lowered the muzzle of his rifle and clicked it to safety. The men and women were unblemished. The men handsome, the women beautiful.

They were not the Night P. Those creeps

could haunt graveyards. And probably did.

“What’s your problem?” Emil asked. “Don’t you have no better sense than to prowl around cities in the night?”

“Our bus broke down,” a woman said. “The old engine finally gave up the good fight. There are but six of us.”

Emil counted. There were six of them. He could have sworn there were sixty. Fear in the night can play tricks on a person.

“If you are going east, would you be so kind as to give us a lift?” the spokeswoman requested. “We are not going far.”

“You got any gas?”

“Plenty of fuel, neighbor. We’ll give you gas for a ride.”

“I’m only goin” about forty-five miles,” Emil said.

“That would be wonderful,” the woman said. “That would put us precisely at our destination. You’re so kind. The night can be fearful, can it not?”

“Bet your ass,” Emil muttered. He looked at the woman. And speaking of ass-

“Okay,” Emil said. “Let’s get you all loaded up and this buggy gassed up.”

They worked quickly, for full night was upon them. Emil noticed that all the newcomers, despite their talk of peace and love, were heavily armed. But in this day and time, only a fool wasn’t.

With the softness of the chickie pushing against him, Emil cranked the limo, now with a full tank of gas, the luggage on the rack on top. It headed out into the night.

“See the Night People, over there!” Carl said, pointing.

“Screw “em,” Emil said, driving past the dark

outline of what had once been a shopping mall. He was soon on the highway.

Everyone breathed a long, collective sigh of relief.

“It could have become very ugly back there,” a man spoke from the back seat. ‘The Night People are organizing, all over the land. They have a system of radio hookups that stretch all over the lower forty-eight. They will soon be a force to reckon with, I am afraid.”

“They hate and despise everyone who is not like them,” the chickie beside Emil said. “And where once they were to be pitied, now they have turned savage and hateful. They are becoming increasingly dangerous.”

“Blomm will protect us, won’t he, Brother Emil?” Carl asked.

“The Good Book says the Lord helps those who help themselves,” Emil stated. Or something like that. Pretty profound, anyways.

“Blomm?” the chickie by Emil said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Blomm.”

“Nor I, Sister Susie,” a man spoke from the back seat. “We worshipped with Brother Fladstool out in California for a time; but then the Russian and his troops came along and we had to flee for our lives. Remember, Sister Susie?”

“Oh, yes, Brother William. It was after that we went to Arizona and for a time worshipped with the Reverend Mugwan, and his Sun, Moon, and Stars Church. But we became dissatisfied with East Indian mystics and are now looking for something more gentle.”

“Wonderful!” Emil cried, almost losing control of the limo as Sister Susie’s softness pressed against him. He had a hard-on that was throbbing like a bass

drum. “I know just the place for you to settle.”

“Oh, wonderful, Emil!” Sister Susie cried, clapping her soft little hands together. “I’m so glad we’ll all be together.”

“Oh, well be close, all right,” Emil promised. Bet your ass on that, chickie.

She put her hand on Emil’s thigh. “Tell me, Emil, how long have you been with Francis Freneau and his Joyful Followers of Life?”

A back tire on the limo blew out with a bang! Chapter 10

Colonel West and his three battalions of troops took the northern route. They cut up to Highway 36 at St. Joseph, Missouri and then followed that due east. Ben and his troops cut south of Kansas City, then gradually began working their way east, taking the southernmost route of the two armies.

Before they left, Colonel West told Ben, “Louie is rumored to have some old ICBM’S fully functional, general.”

Ben almost choked on his tea. “Nukes?”

“That’s what Ashley thought. That’s why he was always so secure. He was even going to use them against you.”

Colonel West was smiling.

“Why are you smiling, colonel?”

“You know anything about guided missiles, general?”

“No.”

“Well, on these, sir, you don’t just push a button and the birds fly. It takes a sequence of events to launch. Here’s the way it might work: Your PAR, the

Perimeter Acquisition Radar, would gather initial trajectory data on targets and then transmit that to the Fire Coordination Center. The FCC would then select the most appropriate missile site to respond, and then transmit the collected data to the MDC, the Missile Direction Center located at that site.”

“Good God!” Ben said.

“Oh, there’s more, sir. Believe me. It is not and cannot be a one-man show. Besides, I looked at one of the missiles. They aren’t ICBM’S. They’re Spartan.”

“Shorter range.”

“Yes, sir. And this particular Spartan was designed to explode in the exo-atmosphere.”

“Outside the atmosphere.”

“Hopefully.”

“What do you mean, colonel?”

“Well, sir, these birds haven’t been checked in years. And Louie was a genius. I’ve heard that he monkeyed with the guidance system on some of them. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I just don’t know.”

Ben thought for a moment. “Is it possible, colonel, for Louie to have … hell, rewired the system?”

“To make it a one-man show?”

“Yes.”

West sighed. “It’s possible, general. I think. And that screwball just might have done it.”

“Any idea which direction they were programmed to fly?”

“No, sir.”

“But you don’t believe they’re nuclear, right?”

“No, sir. I do not believe they are.”

“Would they blow up by themselves?”

“It’s possible, sir. You see, general, the firing sequence is almost entirely automated through the Data Processing System. But, Louie could have found a way to hook into or bypass that, because they’re all capable of having manual intervention at any point deemed necessary.”

“Deemed necessary by … whom?”

“Maybe by Louie.”

“God help us all!”

“That’s it, people!” Cecil shouted at Mackey and Billy. “Both of you, over here.”

Leaving the Misfits to grab five on the field, Mackey and Billy trotted to Cecil’s side. “What’s up, general?” Lt. Mackey asked.

“We’re moving out. Khamsin’s people are crossing the river, using the bridges just north of Savannah. His first teams are racing toward Interstate Twenty, to beef up those already there.”

“Where do you want us, sir?” Mackey asked.

“Right here,” Cecil said, punching a spot on the map laid on the hood of a pickup. “You’ll be about fifteen miles east of Atlanta.”

“Why there, sir?” Mackey asked.

“Because it is close to Atlanta, May. And Khamsin’s people, so our reports indicate, are avoiding Atlanta. The chances of your Misfits mixing it up with a stronger force are lessened there.”

“The Night People?” May asked.

Cecil nodded his head in silent agreement.

“What’s that, sir?” Billy asked. “What’s the Night People?”

“You haven’t heard of them?” Cecil asked.

“No, sir. But then, that’s easy to explain. None of us have left this immediate area in more than a year and a half.”

May explained about the Night P.

Billy listened and chewed his chaw slowly. “That might account for the strange radio transmissions we intercepted ever” now and then. Wild, crazy talk.”

“Frequency, sergeant?” Cecil asked.

“High band, sir. Just about off the scale.”

“I’ll order a listening team to start monitoring the high band,” Cecil said, as much to himself as to Billy and May. He looked at May. “We’re getting reports from all over the country about these Night People banding together, always in the cities. They could be a problem in the future.”

A runner came panting up. “Sir! A forward recon team from General Raines just radioed in. They must be east of Khamsin’s jamming team. General Raines is on the way, sir. And he’s linked up with a Colonel West; that’s that mercenary. West has three battalions with him. Contact says to look for a man named Ashley; he’ll have about a company of men with him. He’s friendly and will be working with us to fight Khamsin.”

“What’s Ben’s location?” Cecil asked.

“Still a couple of hundred miles west of the Big Muddy, sir.”

Cecil thanked the runner and dismissed him. “It’ll take Ben a good five or six days to get here, the roads being what they are. We’re going to have a tough go of it until Ben gets here.”

“And spread pretty thin,” Mackey said.

“Razor thin,” Cecil agreed. “So let’s be damn sure we’re razor sharp.” Cecil shook hands with May and

Billy Bob. “Move out, people. And good luck.”

Cecil walked to his communications vehicle. “Get me Colonel Williams,” he ordered.

Joe on the horn, Cecil said, “How’s it looking, Joe?”

“Quiet here, general. Too damn quiet. My scouts report a lot of troop movement across the river. All heading south. Is the big push on?”

“Looks that way, Joe. You’re certain there is no movement north?”

“Not unless the IPA is goin’ way inland and then cuttin’ north.”

“I don’t think they want to try the mountain route, Joe. All reports indicate they’re coming across at Savannah.” Cecil thought for a moment, then made his decision, and silently prayed it was the right one.

“Joe, leave a team guarding the I-Eighty-five bridge and start the rest of your people heading south. Link up with me in Athens.”

“Moving out now, sir.”

Cecil walked back to his vehicle and began studying his map. He felt, for several reasons, that Khamsin would not put many troops west of Atlanta. For one, the area between Atlanta and the Alabama line had turned wild, filled with thugs and outlaws and warlords. Khamsin would not want to mix it up with them; not just yet. Another reason was that he would surely know that Ben was on the move, and he would not want his people to get caught in a box, with Cecil’s Rebels to the east, and Ben’s people coming hard from the west.

Smiling, he closed the map case and once more walked to communications. “Get me Mark and Alvaro.”

“Mark? Scramble this. The push is on from Khamsin. Get your people up and moving. Move them south of Interstate Twenty, slip into the woods just east of Sinclair Lake. Slide in there and stay low and quiet. I’m going to pull my people into the area you’re leaving. Got all that?”

“Yes, sir. What’s the drill on this move?”

“Khamsin’s people will want to punch a hole in the center of our lines. Fine. We’ll let them think they’re doing that. I’ll fall back and let them think the line is broken. As soon as they pour across the highway, you and your bunch plug the hole. I’ll keep falling back and split my bunch, putting those troops of the IPA who have crossed the line in a squeeze, if we have any kind of luck at all, we can destroy a battalion.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Ben is on the way, Mark. We’ve got to hold until he gets here.” Cecil brought the man up to date on Ben and Colonel West.

“Move out, Mark.”

Cecil looked at the woman behind the maze of electronic equipment. “Pull everybody north of Interstate Twenty. Everybody. I can’t risk losing a single person in guerrilla action.”

“Yes, sir.” She reached for the mike and began transmitting in code.

Cecil looked toward the west. “It’s gonna be close, Ben. Real close.”

“I’m being forced to detour, general,” Colonel West radioed to Ben’s column. “We’ve got some bridges out on Thirty-six. I’m cutting south to Interstate Seventy.”

“Try to avoid St. Louis, colonel. Some very strange people are now inhabiting the nation’s cities.”

“Ten-four to that, general. I’m looking at a map now. I can’t figure out where to cross the Muddy.”

Ben checked his map. “Try either the northern or southern loop, colonel. You might have to cross at Alton.”

“Ten-four, general. I’ll get back to you.”

Ben looked at Buddy. “As many bridges as possible have to be saved, Buddy. Roads can be patched up and maintained. But once the big bridges are gone, they will not be rebuilt; not in our lifetimes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Haven’t seen you since we pulled out of Kansas, boy. Everything going all right?”

“Fine, sir. General McGowan reassigned me to your column.”

“How considerate of him,” Ben said drily.

“Yes, sir.”

Ben looked the young man over for any sign of rank. He could find none. “Exactly, boy, what is your position in this army?”

“Sort of a roaming recon team, sir. I don’t have any rank.”

“Is that your idea, or Ike’s?”

“Sort of a mutual agreement, sir.”

“I see. Doesn’t that present some difficulty in your giving orders?”

“No, sir. I have experienced no problems as yet.”

Ben was conscious of Tina and Dan standing close, smiling. Denise was sitting behind the wheel of the Jeep, looking straight ahead, but smiling.

“Big goddamn joke,” Ben groused. He glared at Buddy. “Well … go roam and recon, boy.”

“My team is doing that, sir,” Buddy responded. “Sergeant Major Riverson assigned me as your bodyguard.”

“I am just delighted that everyone is so concerned with my welfare.”

“Yes,” Buddy agreed, straight-faced. “It must be quite an honor to be so well-thought-of.”

Ben stared at the young man. But he couldn’t tell if Buddy was putting him on, or not.

“Let’s roll!” Ben ordered. He looked at Buddy. “You take the lead, boy,” he said to a very startled Buddy. “I’ll ride with Dan for an hour or so.”

“Sir! …” Buddy opened his mouth to protest. Then closed it as Ben cut him off.

“I’m putting you in charge of the column, boy. What’s the matter. Don’t you think you can handle it?”

Buddy’s face tightened. “I can handle it, sir.”

“Then get to it,” Ben said gruffly. “If you hit a snag, holler. I’ll be a couple of miles back with Colonel Gray.”

Buddy turned away.

“Boy!” Ben said.

Buddy slowly turned around. “Yes, sir?”

“I got something I might as well get said. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose.”

Buddy braced himself. He knew it had really irritated his father when General Ike had given him a team. Now he felt sure his father was going to make a fool of him by taking that team away from him, or something worse.

But he had come here to be withand to serve his father. So whatever his father decided, he would accept it.

Suddenly, Ben smiled and extended his hand. “Welcome home … Captain Raines.” Chapter 11

“I can drive my own vehicle,” Buddy bitched to Denise. She had insisted upon driving him.

“No, sir,” she said. “General Raines signaled for me to drive you.”

Buddy nodded his head. He wasn’t about to argue that. “You’re leaving behind any family, Denise?”

“A few cousins. My immediate family was killed fighting Ashley and Big Louie.”

Before he could reply, the radio in the Jeep crackled. “Recon One to Eagle.”

Buddy looked at the radio. “That’s your call, Buddy,” Denise said. “You’re in charge, now.”

“I’m not the Eagle!” Buddy protested.

“Recon One to Eagle. Come in, Eagle.”

“Take the call.” Ben’s voice popped out of the speaker. “Little Eagle.”

Denise laughed aloud.

Buddy reddened and then laughed. “All right, Father,” he said. “I can play games, too.”

He picked up the mike and said, “This is Little Eagle, go ahead.”

There were a few seconds’ pause before the recon team responded. “Little Eagle, the highway is blocked your side of Norwood. Outlaws. They’re

demanding a tariff to pass. Orders?”

“Stand by,” Buddy said, then consulted his map. Or rather, his father’s map. The point of the column was about five miles from Norwood. He picked up the mike. “This is … Captain Raines. My team up front. On the double.”

In the center of the column, Ben sat with Dan, both men listening. Ike had walked up to join them.

“You just gonna sit there, Ben?” Ike asked.

“Yep. It’s Buddy’s show.”

“You’re a hard bastard, you know that, Ben?”

“What would you do, Ike, if that were your son up front?”

Ike mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that, Ike?” Ben asking, smiling. “I couldn’t quite catch it.”

“I said I’d probably let him handle it!”

“Just wanted to be sure, Ike.”

Buddy had ordered Denise out of the Jeep. She refused. “I’m your driver, captain.”

Buddy thought he might know just a tad how his father felt at times. “Fine, Denise. Let’s go.”

They stopped a few hundred yards from the blocked highway. Buddy had sent two squads left and right, out of sight of the men behind the barricade.

“There is a bullhorn on the floorboards, back seat,” Denise told him.

“Thank you.” Buddy got the bullhorn and stepped out of the Jeep.

Lifting the bullhorn to his lips, Buddy pulled the trigger and said, “You men behind the blockade. What do you want?”

“This here’s a toll road, boy,” a man shouted back. “You don’t pay, you don’t pass.”

“We can always backtrack, captain,” Denise said.

“Nobody owns the highway system,” Buddy told

her. Lifting the horn to his lips, Buddy said, “I have three thousand troops behind me.”

“You a goddamn lie!” the man shouted.

“And there are troops all around you,” Buddy informed the man.

“Another goddamn lie, boy!”

“You do not own this road!” Buddy shouted through the bullhorn.

“I took it from them goddamn McCoys, and now I own it. So fuck you, soldier boy, or whatever the hell you is!”

“Troops left and right!” Buddy shouted. “Clear the road!”

The quiet morning stillness was shattered by the violent sounds of gunfire. The men standing behind the blockade were knocked backward to the roadbed, their blood soaking into the highway as two dozen M-16’s and M-14’s rattled and spat death.

When the gunfire ceased, Buddy said, “Mop up and post guards on both sides of the road.” He walked back to the Jeep and lifted the mike to his lips. “This is Little Eagle. C Company, first and second platoons, up to my position, pronto.”

Ike looked at Ben. “Ain’t you gonna get on that horn and ask him what went down, Ben?”

“Nope.”

“Ain’t you the least bit curious about what happened?”

“Yep.”

“Ben Raines, you are a plumb exasperatin’ asshole! Anybody ever tell you that?”

“Yep.”

When the first and second platoons from Charlie Company arrived at Buddy’s position, he told them to range east, up the highway, securing the way east for the column.

“How secure, captain?” a platoon sergeant asked.

Buddy looked at the man. “Whoever you encounter will either be our friends, or they will be dead. Is that understood, sergeant?”

The Rebel grinned. “Yes, sir!”

He was not quite out of Buddy’s hearing range when the sergeant said, “We don’t have to worry none about him, people. That’s Ben Raines all over again. Let’s roll!”

Buddy walked back to his Jeep and picked up the mike. “This is Little Eagle to Old Eagle,” he said with a smile. “You may advance now, Father. I have secured the area.”

Dan was laughing so hard he fell out of the Jeep. Ike and Tina were roaring, tears running down their faces.

Ben sat quietly, shaking his head and smiling. When the laughter died away, he said, “I sure set myself up for that one, didn’t I?”

And a few miles outside of Topeka, the clock that Big Louie had set before his fateful meeting with Ben Raines started clicking.

Louie might well have been crazy, but he was not stupid. He had known for some time of Ashley’s deceit and subversion. Louie wanted to leave something for the masses to remember him by in case this meeting with Ben Raines turned out to be a trap and he did not survive.

He had entered the silo and worked for more than an hour, resetting and reprogramming the firing and guidance systems. But Louie was going to be just a bit short and south of his goal of dropping one in on Khamsin in South Carolina. Besides, while Louie had been brilliant in some areas, he was quite stupid

in others. This type of missile was not built to explode on land contact.

But no matter. It would certainly help a fellow that Louie would have loved.

Far away. In Louisiana. When the clock finally reached its firing point.

Don’t look back. Somebody might be gaining on you.

Satchel Paige Chapter 1

We still have radio contact with Cecil?” Ben asked his radio operator.

“Yes, sir. He’s diggin’ in for a fight. The last word I got was that Khamsin’s people are really pourin’ into Georgia.”

“Setting up a line along Interstate Twenty?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben nodded and turned to Buddy. “Assemble your teams and get ready to move out. You’ll be driving them hard, Buddy. Clear the way for us all the way to Sikeston, Missouri. We’ll pick up Interstate Fifty-five there. We’ll take that down to Jackson, Mississippi. From there, the column will cut straight east. I want us to come up under Khamsin’s troops. We’ll hit them from the south. Move out, boy, and good luck.”

“Yes, sir.” Buddy trotted off, shouting for his teams.

“Ike,” Ben said. “Get in touch with Colonel West. Tell him to push hard. I want him to link up with Cecil in Georgia.”

“Right now, Ben.”

Ben stood and watched as Buddy and his teams pulled out, heavily armed, carrying as much ammo

and food as they could. Buddy was in the lead Jeep, the ties of his dark red bandana tailing in the wind.

“Damn boy just won’t wear regulation headgear,” Ben said, smiling.

Ben saluted his son, and Buddy returned the gesture.

Then the teams were out of sight, pushing as hard as road conditions would allow.

“Godspeed, boy,” Ben murmured.

“You sure this is going to work, Brother Emil?” Brother Matthew asked.

“I’m positive,” Emil assured him. “You just make damn sure this gets in the men’s water supply, and then leave the rest to Blomm.”

Brother Matthew looked rather dubious about the whole thing, but finally he nodded his head. “Just the men’s water supply?”

“Just the men’s.”

“Look, Emil. Don’t hand me none of that Blomm shit. The Great God Blomm has about as much power as a pickle.”

Emil looked frantically about him. “Shush! Don’t say that too loud, you idiot. Somebody might hear you that isn’t supposed to.”

“This scam better work, Emil. “Cause if it don’t, I’m splittin”.”

“It’ll work. It’s gonna take four or five days, maybe even a week, but it’ll work.”

“I hope you’re right, Emil. For the sake of all of us, I hope you’re right.”

No more than I do, Emil thought.

After Brother Matthew had walked away, Emil looked heavenward; actually, he was looking more west than up. A bit north by west to be exact. Which

was all right, as it would later turn out.

“Blomm, Zeus, Aphrodite … somebody, give me a little bitty miracle. “Cause holy shit, I don’t wanna have to go back to hoein” butter beans! I got it made here. Come on. Just a little teeny weeny miracle. Please?”

There is someone on the radio who is requesting to speak to you, general,” Khamsin was informed.

“Who is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“My apologies, sir. But the person is very insistent.”

“Name?”

“He says his name is Ashley, and he has news of Ben Raines.”

Khamsin glanced at Hamid. “It could be a trick,” Hamid said.

“And it could be worth hearing,” Khamsin countered. “All right,” he spoke to the messenger. “Tell this Ashley I’ll be along presently.”

“Yes, sir.”

But impatience and curiosity got the better of Khamsin, and he was less than a minute behind the messenger in entering the radio room at his HQ.

“I’m having trouble holding the frequency, sir,” Khamsin was told. “The distance is not that great, only a few hundred miles. But he’s on very low band and keeps slipping away.”

“Get him for me,” Khamsin ordered.

“I’ll keep this short, general,” Ashley said. “I don’t want the Rebels accidentally stumbling onto this transmission. You ten-four that?”

“I understand,” Khamsin replied. “Can you switch to a scramble?”

“If they’ll mesh, sure.”

“We’ll let the radio people on each end work on it. I’ll talk to you momentarily.”

The radio operators finally settled on a higher band, one that could be scrambled to both party’s equipment.

“Now then,” Khamsin said, taking the mike. “You may speak freely.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, general,” Ashley told him. “Raines has the finest radio equipment in the world. They’ll find us, and lock onto us and unscramble. Believe me, I know. So everything we have to say, we’d best say this go-around and save the rest for a face-to-face. Ten-four?”

“Perfectly.”

“Raines is headin’ your way with about thirty-five hundred combat-ready Rebels. Three of my battalions are with him; but only one is going to fight with Raines. You understand that?”

Khamsin looked at Hamid and both men smiled. “I understand,” Khamsin said. “But why the generosity?”

“Simple. I hate Raines more than I distrust you.”

“How do I know this is not a trick?”

“You don’t. Yet. But hear me out. I just intercepted a radio message from Raines to Colonel West. Raines is going to take the southern route and come up behind your men, south of Interstate Twenty. The nigger, Jefferys, will link up with Colonel West and my people north of the interstate. To put your people in a box. Ten-four?”

“Yes,” Khamsin said. “Ten-four. Your plan?”

“My men will wait until they’ve linked up with the nigger and then revolt. They have their orders. That agreeable with you?”

“Yes. But what do you want from me for all of this?”

“Not a goddamn thing, other than Raines being dead.”

“Oh, come now! Surely you want something.”

“All right. You stay east of the Mississippi River and I’ll stay west. How about that?”

“How do you know you can trust me?” Khamsin asked.

“I don’t, partner. But I’ve always heard that you were a man of honor. Is my information wrong?”

Khamsin drew himself up and bristled at the slur. “I am, of course, a man of honor.”

“Then we have a gentleman’s agreement, general.”

“We have an agreement, Mr. Ashley.”

“We’ll both monitor this frequency at noon each day for messages. “Ten-four?”

“Agreed.”

Both men signed off.

“I have discovered something, Hamid,” Khamsin said. “With Ben Raines, there is no middle ground. People either love the man, or totally despise him.”

“Or totally fear him,” Hamid dared to say.

But Khamsin did not take umbrage. Instead he smiled. “Yes. You are correct, Hamid. Or totally fear him.”

Ben pushed his people hard, driving first east, then due south on Interstate 55. Buddy and his teams were driving just as hard, clearing the way of obstacles, both human and accidental. A six-person engineer team was traveling with Buddy, in case the obstacles needed to be blown free, or a temporary bridge built.

The long stretch of interstate between Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi yawned before the Rebels, seemingly deserted, void of human life. But cook fires could be seen on either side of the

concrete lanes as the Rebels drove south. But they rarely spotted any human life.

“I wonder about people like that,” Buddy said to Judy as he pointed toward a slim finger of smoke, edging upward from a home in the distance. “I wonder what they’re doing and how they are getting along.”

“Warlords control much of this area,” Judy said. “But the Rebels have crisscrossed this route several times before. They’ll keep their heads down. They won’t mess with us.”

“How can people just allow themselves to be ruled like that? I mean, by outlaws and other human trash?”

“Roadblock up ahead,” Buddy’s radio crackled.

“This may answer your question,” Judy said.

Buddy picked up the mike. “Location?”

“Five miles north of the Grenada Dam exit,” the point team replied. “It’s no small force, captain. We’ll have a fight on our hands.”

“Have they spotted you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fall back and hold position. We’re ten minutes away.”

The column topped the hill and slowed, spotting the point team. Signaling his people to halt, Buddy walked to the Rebel squad leader. “Did you make verbal contact with them?”

“Yes, sir. They say this is a closed area. They’ll allow us to pass if we give them ammo and women.”

Buddy smiled. “In that order?”

The squad leader grinned. “Yes, sir.”

Buddy was silent for a moment. “They may have just told us that they’re short of ammunition. We’ll lay back about five hundred meters and let the snipers have some fun.”

Buddy waved several Rebels forward. They were all armed with heavy sniper rifles.

“Make things a little hot for the people down there,” Buddy told them. “Let’s see how heavy they return the fire.”

The first volley from the long range shooters knocked three outlaws sprawling, all three with massive chest wounds from the rifles more than fifteen hundred feet away.

The returning fire was sparse.

“Low on ammo,” Buddy said. “We can’t just knock out this blockade and go on. They’ll have it rebuilt in a day and then Dad will be held up. We’ve got to take the whole bunch out. Mortar teams up!”

Two mortars, each with a range of up to thirty-three hundred yards. “Blow it out of there,” Buddy ordered.

The barricades were reduced to smoking ruins in less than two minutes.

“Clear it out and bring any still living up to me,” Buddy ordered.

Three men and one woman were brought before Buddy. All were slightly wounded and dazed.

“The four of you are standing closer to death than you have ever stood before,” Buddy told them. “And don’t doubt that for an instant.”

He could tell by their frightened eyes that they did not.

“What was the purpose of the blockade?”

The question seemed to confuse them all.

“You do not own the nation’s highways.” Buddy tried another tact.

“Neely Green claims this area for his own,” the woman spoke. “We have formed our own nation here.”

“Very admirable of Mr. Green,” Buddy said, then

thought he’d give them all a mild jolt. “My father did the same.”

“Your daddy?” a man asked. “Who’s “at?”

“Ben Raines,” Buddy said softly.

The man peed in his dirty jeans. “Oh, Lard!” he said.

The other three began trembling.

“Where is this Neely Green?” Buddy asked.

“Grenada,” the woman said quickly. “You want me to go git him for you?”

“How kind of you to volunteer. But would I ever see you again?”

The woman regained some composure. “Yes. Because you don’t have enough people to whip Neely.”

“I am in radio contact with half a dozen battalions,” Buddy informed her. “General Raines commanding. Do you think that would be enough to contain your Mr. Neely?”

When she again found her voice, she thought that was probably enough troops to do the job.

“Why are you doing this to us?” one of the men with her asked. “We ain’t done nothin” to you.”

Indeed, Buddy thought. A fair question. He wondered how his father would reply to that. And Buddy was conscious of many Rebel eyes on him. “If you wish to set up small communities, to band together for safety and productivity, free of slavery and forced labor upon others, that, certainly, is your right. But you do not have the right to block highways and demand some sort of toll for others to pass.”

“You’re wrong,” the woman told him. “The roads belong to them strong enough to take and hold them.”

“And that is the feeling among all who follow this Neely person?”

“Yeah.”

“You hold slaves?”

“Inferiors.”

Buddy sighed. Would it never end? It seemed to be getting worse. He looked at the woman. “I don’t expect you to tell me the truth, but I have to ask. How many men hold this area?”

“Fuck you!” she told him.

“Thank you, but no.” He turned to Judy. “We’ll need to know some estimate of how many we are facing. Send in a recon team?”

She nodded and left.

“Remove the prisoners, tie them up, and guard them.”

He turned to the squad leader. “Set up perimeters. They may try to hit us. As much as I hate to say it, we’re going to have to wait for reinforcements.”

“There’s no crime in that, captain,” the squad leader said. “That’s just good sense.”

“But it’s going to slow up my father’s column.”

“We’re used to that, captain,” the squad leader said. “We might not like it, but we’re used to it.”

Less than an hour passed before the first of the recon teams returned and reported to Buddy. “I’d say three to four hundred, captain. At the minimum. They’re pretty well armed too. And not a ragtag-looking bunch, either.”

Buddy went to his radio truck and called in. “Father, we are now approximately eight miles north of Grenada. We have cleared the southbound lanes of a roadblock, but are facing possibly four hundred armed men. However, I feel they are low on ammo. We are too small to launch any attack, but could hold until reinforcements arrive. Orders?”

“We don’t have time to fuck around with some

two-bit warlord, Buddy. Hold your position and stand ready to repel any attack. Colonel Gray will be on his way within five minutes to beef you up until the main column arrives.”

“Yes, sir. The colonel’s approximate ETA?”

“Three to four hours.”

“Ten-four, sir.”

He turned to find Judy looking at him.

“My apologies, Buddy,” she said.

“I don’t understand. Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I said that no warlord would mess around with us.”

“I think warlords come and go, Judy. This Neely person was probably pushed out of his last territory and came here; probably killed the outlaw leader who was here at the time. You had no way of knowing. Forget it. Get the people secured tight. We’ve got about a four-hour wait until Colonel Gray arrives.”

Only an hour had passed before Buddy got the word handed down the line to him.

“We’re completely surrounded, sir. Both sides of the highway and north and south on the interstate.”

“Kind of like the old cowboys and Indians, hey?” Buddy said, his smile tight.

“Yes, sir,” the young Rebel, no more than seventeen or eighteen, said.

But Buddy knew he was already a combat-hardened vet.

“Frightened?” Buddy asked.

The young man grinned. “No, sir. This is a piece of cake. I been doin’ this since I was fourteen years old. I been in so many firefights I can’t remember them all.”

“What’s your name?”

“Harris, sir.”

“You’ve been a Rebel since you were fourteen?”

“Yes, sir. Me and four-five others come up out of East Texas to join the general.”

“Where are the others who came with you?”

“All dead, sir. Fightin’ the Russian, Striganov. Another got killed when the revolt went down. Another got his ticket punched out in California.”

“A hard price to pay, Harris.”

“Freedom don’t never come easy, captain. I wasn’t but two or three when the Great War came. I don’t remember nothing “cept hard times and fightin” to stay alive.” He grinned, and his boyishness showed through. “But with all the fightin’, General Raines made us all go to school for learning.”

“You think a lot of General Raines, hey?”

“I think he’s the greatest man that’s walkin’ the face of the earth today.”

Before Buddy could agree with him, a voice sprang out of the woods on the west side of the interstate. An evil voice, filled with hate and ugliness.

“Mighty fine-lookin’ bunch of cunts you got wearin’ them fancy uniforms. We gonna do our beside’ to take you gals alive. Then we’ll all have fun.”

No one from the thin and spread-out ranks of Rebels elected to reply vocally to that. Out of the corner of his eyes, Buddy saw Judy spit on the ground in disgust.

“Yes, sir,” the voice spoke. “That old boy that come down here from Ohio and took over the area just east of here pays good for women. “Course, me and other boys here will sample that pussy some ‘fore we trade y’all off.”

“Can you locate him, Harris?” Buddy whispered.

“I got him spotted close enough, captain.”

“Judy?”

“Two more to his right. But I want them.”

From the east side of the interstate, another voice was added. “How you reckon these fancy soldier boys will stand up to torture, Perry?”

“I reckon they’ll do some hollerin”. Might be a right good show.”

Buddy lifted his walkie-talkie. “East side. You have that voice located?”

“Ten-four.”

“Ready, here?” he asked.

“Let’s do it,” Harris said.

“Now!” Buddy spoke into the cup.

The mid-morning quiet blew apart with the sounds of gunfire. One man on the west side of the interstate was lifted off his knees and onto his feet as his stomach and chest were stitched with M-14 rounds. He stood up on tiptoes and lifted both arms. Branches caught him under the armpits and stopped him. He hung there as the blood slowed its dripping as his heart stopped pumping.

Buddy heard the thunk of a rocket being dropped down a mortar tube, the slam and flutter as it took to the air. Screaming followed the explosion; more howling followed that. The mortar crew was dropping white phosphorus in on the enemy.

Buddy lifted his Thompson as a man darted into view across the median. The Thompson sang its .45 caliber song as the big slow-moving slugs took the man in the legs. Screaming, the outlaw pitched face forward in the weeds and lay howling until the pain dropped him into unconsciousness.

The chug-a-chug of the big .50 caliber machine guns joined in the smoky noise. The huge slugs knocked down small saplings and destroyed any living thing they came in contact with.

The returning fire was very light.

“Fall back! Fall back!” a man shouted. “We’ll wait for Neely to get here. Fall back, goddammit!”

Then the Rebel snipers went to work. Any flash of color from either side of the interstate meant either pain or death as the outlaws raced to get away from the barrage of gunfire from the outnumbered Rebels. Firing beefed-up .308’s and .30-jf’s, the snipers calmly and coldly did what they were trained to do.

Kill dispassionately.

“Cease fire!” Buddy yelled.

The firing stopped.

Moaning and yelling and weeping drifted to the Rebels from both sides of the highway.

Harris looked at Buddy and grinned. “I think those ol’ boys are gonna be a tad more cautious next time around, captain.”

Buddy returned the smile. “I couldn’t have said it better, Harris.” Chapter 2

There were no more attacks on Buddy’s Rebels that hot afternoon. The day dragged on under the hot stickiness of late summer in Mississippi. There were no more taunting and threatening voices heard from the woods on either side of the interstate.

Buddy watched as Harris slipped from his position and knelt down on the shoulder, putting his ear on the concrete. He looked up, grinning. “I thought I heard something. Lots of vehicles comin’, captain.”

The Rebels opened the north side of their perimeter for Colonel Gray.

Smiling, Dan Gray stepped out of his Jeep and walked to Buddy. “A problem, captain?”

Briefly, Buddy explained.

Dan nodded his head. “Secure the area for a mile,” he ordered his troops. “In all directions.” He turned to Buddy. “General Raines can’t take the time to knock out this warlord, Buddy. We’ll just secure the area until the main columns pass. This Neely Green will just have to keep for a time.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dan waved to his batman. “Some tea would be nice,” he said. To Buddy: “Your father is a few hours behind us. We’ve experienced some problems with the larger trucks. Let’s go have a chat with the prisoners you took.”

The three men and one woman looked up at the tall Englishman. “I say,” Dan said to them. “You people are really in a frightful dilemma. And have placed me in quite an awkward position.”

Buddy stood silent, not knowing what Dan had up his sleeve.

The men were badly frightened and showed their fear. The woman glared at Dan.

“What the hell are you?” she snarled at him.

Dan smiled. “Col. Dan Gray, madam. Formally of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service, now a battalion commander with General Raines’s Rebels.”

“Well, kiss my ass!” the woman spat. “Ain’t he just too sweet?”

Dan’s eyes narrowed. Buddy had been told he did not like coarse women. “You are a rather crude person, madam. I might suggest, if you wish to continue breathing, you try to keep a civil tongue in your head.”

She laughed at him and then proceeded to hang together every cuss word she knew-which would have filled a dictionary-all directed at Dan and his ancestry.

When she paused for breath, Dan said, “Are you quite through, madam?”

“Yeah, mother-fucker!” she hissed at him.

Dan’s batman handed him a cup of tea and several crackers. He gave Buddy the same. Dan sipped his tea and munched on a cracker, all the while staring at the female with the foul mouth.

“They are your prisoners, captain,” Dan said.

“What you do with them is your business. Personally, I’d shoot the woman.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

“You’re stupid,” Buddy told the woman. “Dan was probably going to cut you loose. Now I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Neely’ll kill you, pretty boy,” she said, grinning at him. “I’m one of his women.”

“There is no accounting for some people’s taste,” Buddy told her, then turned and walked away.

The woman’s screaming profanity followed him.

“Awesome,” Joe Williams said to his driver. “Matt, we must be looking at three-four thousand troops down there.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, lowering his own binoculars. “Only good part about this is that we got the high ground.”

“Yes,” Joe said. “If only we can hold it until General Raines gets here.”

Joe’s troops were positioned just north of the interstate, running from Augusta west to Cadley.

A very thin line.

Cecil’s Rebels were spread from Cadley over to Greensboro. The area between Greensboro and Conyers was patched together by Rebels who normally did not hold combat positions. The Misfits were lined up around Conyers.

An outnumbered line of Freedom Fighters.

Colonel West was driving his battalions as hard as he dared. He was now pushing across Central Tennessee, on his way toward Chattanooga; there, he would cut south on Interstate 75, then angle east and south

midway between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

During one of their fuel stops, West called in company commanders and platoon leaders from his First Battalion.

“Second and Third battalions are up to something,” he said, vocalizing a hunch. “I think Ashley hates General Raines so much he’d do anything to get him. Including sacrificing us to meet that goal.”

“The commanders of Second and Third are sure buddy-buddy,” a platoon leader said. “I’m with you, colonel. I think we’re up to our ass in shit.”

“So what do we do, colonel?” a mercenary asked.

“I’m going to split up Second and Third. Just as soon as we hit Chattanooga, I’m going to send the Third straight east, through the mountains, and order them to deploy north to south from Dillard to Tallulah Falls. I’ll order the Second to stand back in reserve. If they bow up at those orders, we’ll know they’re up to something.”

“And us?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out right now.”

West went to his communications van and told the operator to get General Jefferys on the horn.

“General Jefferys? Colonel West here. I think I’ve got a problem, sir.” He laid out his suspicions to Cecil.

“What do you base this on, colonel?” Cecil asked.

“A soldier’s hunch, sir. Ashley hates Ben Raines so deeply I think he’d do anything to see him dead. And there is this: I think we’re better off without the Second and Third, even if my suspicions are wrong.”

“They’re that bad in the field?”

“The Third is the pits, sir. Useless. And the Second is not much better. And they are solidly Ashley’s men. I don’t trust them, general.”

“If you split them, colonel, and your suspicions

prove out, you’ll have them at your back.”

West’s sigh was audible over the miles. “Yes, sir, I am aware of that.”

“I trust your hunches, colonel. You know these men in question; I don’t.”

“Thank you, sir. Where do you want me and my troops?”

“I’m very weak between Greensboro and Conyers. I need that area beefed up badly.”

“I’ll push them hard, general. With any kind of luck, I’ll be there and in position by dawn.”

“Thank you, colonel. It’s good to have you with us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Emil hiked his robe up around his knees and began chanting, speaking in tongues as he did a combination of the jitterbug and the twist in the dust. Occasionally, he would stop and point in the direction of the camp of Francis Freneau and his Joyful Followers of Life.

Brother Carl began racing around the village. “Come quickly, come quickly. Brother Emil is in the spirit of Blomm, and the great god is speaking to him. Come quickly, come quickly.”

Emil’s followers gathered around, staring in awe and wonder as Emil began to get down and boogie right.

“Ughum, bugum, and doo waa ditty titty!” Emil shouted, working up a sweat under the summer sun.

He suddenly stopped his gyrations and flung his arms wide, his face to the sky. Fuckin’ sun is tough, he thought.

“Blomm is angry,” he shouted. “Blomm has told me there is an imposter in our area. A man who

speaks with forked tongue.” Come on, Emil, he berated himself. You can do better than that. “This man is subverting our worship of Blomm, and Blomm is raining down curses on this man’s head.”

Emil flung himself on the ground and began hunching and twisting and screaming.

Sucker is good when he wants to be, Brother Matthew thought. He just might actually pull this shit off.

The men and women, more than a hundred strong, oohed and aahed as Emil thrashed about on the ground, the dust flying, his mouth shouting words in a tongue known only to Emil and to Blomm. Suddenly, Emil stopped his frantic movements and stiffened.

Slowly he rose to his knees and pointed west with a trembling finger. “The great lie is there!” he thundered.

“Least he got the direction right,” Brother Roger said. “Little sucker can get lost goin’ to the crapper.”

Emil heard him and shifted his eyes, whispering, “Shut your fuckin’ face, ninny! I could win an academy award for this performance.”

“Blomm is calling to me!” Emil shouted. “Yes, Great Blomm? Yes, yes, I hear and repeat your words.”

Emil strung together some words from some 1970 rock songs, which made about as much sense now as they did then. Emil jumped to his feet, mouthed some 1980’s rap, and ended with a chorus of Bo Jangles.

Minus the dog.

“Oh, Blomm!” Emil said, placing one hand over his heart. “Oh, no, not Francis Freneau!”

Emil lowered his head and slowly shook it from side to side. “Poor Francis,” he said. “Thinking he

could fool the gods.”

“What about dear Francis?” a woman called shrilly. “What is happening, Brother Emil?”

“He is being punished for placing himself in a godlike position. His behavior will become most erratic, and his followers will be unhappy.” “Oh no!” the ladies all shouted.

“And the men with him, too,” Emil added. “Oh no!”

“Fuckin’ horny broads,” Emil whispered. “He will be stricken with some terrible physical affliction. From his waist down!” Emil shouted. “Oh no!”

Emil lowered his head. “And there will be nothing that anyone can do to save the poor misguided fool.”

The ladies all began weeping and wailing.

“I am exhausted,” Emil said. “I must rest.” He looked at the crowd, a sly glint in his eyes. “It is very wearing on me to speak with the gods. But of course, you’ve never seen Francis Freneau do that, have you?”

“No,” the crowd whispered.

“Come.” Emil held out his arms. “Escort me to my quarters and bathe and rub my poor aching feet.”

Soberly, as if they were handling the Mona Lisa, the crowd gently carried Emil to his quarters.

Ben stood with Buddy and Dan on the shoulder of the interstate, watching his columns roll past; a seemingly endless parade of the machines and people of war.

“What do you want to do with the prisoners, son?” Ben asked.

“Turn them loose. Let them wallow in their ignorance with their ignorant friends.”

Ben looked toward Denise. “Cut them loose and have them guarded until the last vehicle is past.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did a good job here, Buddy,” Ben told him.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Get your teams together and move out. Catch up and pass the columns. I want you at least fifty miles ahead of us.”

“Yes, sir.” He grinned. “I’ll see you in Georgia, general.”

As Buddy was yelling for his teams to gather and move out, Ike walked up.

“I’ll be going on ahead, Ben. Joe Williams has got the easternmost section; I’ll come up under him and be in position.”

“All right, Ike. Good luck.” He turned to Dan. “Dan, follow Ike. Spread your people from east to west. Ill take this section between these national forests here.” He punched the map. “Just south of Greensboro. Tina? Your teams will be the last in position. Stay out of Atlanta. Spread out along this line from Conyers to, say, Covington. Let’s roll!”

Khamsin’s troops struck just at dusk, using mortars and light artillery. And had they not been so confident of victory, they might have punched through the thin lines in a spot not of Cecil’s choosing. But the troops of the IPA had never full force tasted the fury of Ben Raines’s Rebels. But on this bloody dusk, the last rays of the sun gone, the troops of the IPA were about to find out why Raines’s Rebels had such an awesome reputation.

Khamsin’s troops came across the interstate charging Joe Williams’s position. The troops of The Hot Wind died in bloody heaps before even reaching the median.

Joe had armed every fourth Rebel with an M-60 machine gun. Every squad had a .50 caliber machine gun. And the Rebels had mined the median.

Joe, as had every commander, brought all the firepower his people could possibly use. And it was deadly awesome.

Then, for no apparent reason, Joe’s troops pulled back and shifted positions, deserting the interstate, moving as silently and swiftly as ghosts.

“Where in the hell are they going?” Khamsin screamed the question as soon as he got the message.

“They are retreating, sir! We have broken through their lines.”

But Khamsin recalled, bitterly, the last time his troops thought they had the Rebels on the run.

That little ruse had cost him a thousand men. He sat in his new command post in Augusta and worried thoughts around in his mind.

“Two companies,” he ordered. “Send two companies after them. And do it cautiously.”

The IPA who struck Joe Williams moved through the night, pursuing the retreating Rebels. They encountered no mines, no snipers, no nothing. But they did find tracks left by the Rebels as they ran away.

They reported this back to Khamsin.

“Fourth Brigade across the line and pursue the Rebels,” he ordered. “Cautiously, cautiously, now.”

Joe had pulled his people back, way back, all the way back to Highway 43, north of the interstate, leaving Rebel sappers in deep cover behind him, stretched out along a twenty-five-mile strip of interstate.

As the troops of the IPA moved across the interstate, into what had just been Rebel-held territory, the Rebel sappers came out of deep cover and moved

across the interstate, carrying their deadly cargo of mines and explosives.

The sappers then formed up into small guerrilla groups and waited for the action to start.

Joe’s troops were now in position, lying in wait, north to south, along Highways 43 and 78. That left the troops of the IPA with the river at their backs, the western fingers of Clarks Hill Lake to their north, and the deadly mined interstate to their south.

And a half a dozen guerrilla groups waiting in ambush in the darkness.

Cecil’s thinly placed troops stood their positions and slugged it out with the IPA across the interstate. The odds were impossibly against the Rebels, but that was something they were, to a person, used to. They held their ground and fought savagely.

And Mark and Alvaro waited with their troops just south of Cecil’s battle lines.

The hot late summer’s night exploded in hate and rage along the interstate. Several companies of Khamsin’s IPA, expecting little or no resistance, moved confidently across the interstate just east of Conyers. They died in bloody piles in the eastbound lanes. Lieutenant Mackey’s Misfits were determined to prove themselves in the eyes of the other Rebels. The company of quick-trained Rebels fought with a ferocity that surprised even them.

The lines of Rebels, stretching thinly along the interstate, bent and buckled, but did not break as the night attack continued to ram its assault against the Freedom Fighters.

“Circle now.” Joe Williams gave the orders, speaking into the cup of his walkie-talkie. “Quickly and quietly.”

Rebels sealed off the few miles between the last south-pointing finger of Clarks Hill Lake and Interstate 20, just west of Highway 78. Other Rebels moved just east of Highway 47, putting the troops of the IPA into a box.

“Now!” Joe gave the orders. “Hit them hard. No prisoners.”

The Fourth Brigade of Khamsin’s invincible Islamic People’s Army found themselves fighting shadowy ghosts in the night; they found themselves in a deadly no-man’s-land, some of them facing men and women in vicious hand-to-hand combat, facing Rebels with knives honed to razor sharpness.

Some of Khamsin’s IPA ran toward the north, toward the fingers of the lake, and became hopelessly lost in the maze of brush and timber and marsh, the country not tended by human hands in years. Others walked into ambushes. Entire squads were wiped out by two and three-person Rebels’ teams lying in wait in the night.

Others of Khamsin’s so-called superior forces ran south, toward the interstate. They ran into Claymores and Bouncing Bettys and trip-wired, electronically detonated C-4’s. Brush fires sprang up into the night, set by Rebels to block escape routes. The fires grabbed greedily at the clothing of the IPA, creating running, screaming human torches in the darkness.

The night skies along the interstate became brightly lighted by the dry brush and wood.

“Get your people out of there!” Khamsin screamed the orders from his CP.

But it was too late for most of the ill-fated Fourth Brigade.

The summer night, normally filled with the scent of flowers, became filled with the odor of burning human flesh, excrement from death-relaxed bowels,

and the sickly-sweet odor of death.

And once more, the taste in Khamsin’s mouth was the copper-like taste of defeat.

“Scouts just radioed in, colonel,” West was informed. “The Second and Third have linked up and are spreading out west to east. Looks like they’re trying to box us in.”

“Looks like I was right,” West said. But he took no satisfaction in being correct.

Colonel West looked at his map. His troops had angled south and east in order to avoid the trashy and dangerous mess that was now Atlanta.

But they still had miles to go, over roads that were unfamiliar and, for the most part, badly in need of repair.

“I figure three-four more hours,” West said. “We’re ahead of schedule, but those assholes in Second and Third worry me some.”

“That goddamn Ashley!” a company commander said. “He must really have the red-ass toward General Raines.”

“If I ever get that son of a bitch in gunsights,” West said, “I’ll put an end to his quarrel. And you can tattoo that on your arm. Let’s roll, boys.”

Buddy’s teams had barreled past Ike’s slower-moving columns and were inside Georgia long before dawn.

At La Grange, Buddy brought his teams to a halt.

“Let’s find out where everybody is,” Buddy said. “String an antenna over there,” he said, pointing, “and let’s get set up.”

“This is Captain Raines to any Rebel unit within

the sound of my voice. Come in, please.”

At Conyers, Georgia, Lieutenant Mackey was darting from position to position during a lull in the fighting. She was approached by a runner.

“Lieutenant, there’s a Captain Raines on the horn.”

“A Captain Raines?” Mackey questioned.

“Yes, ma’am. Says he’s Ben Raines’s son; he’s the lead recon commander. Has about seventy-five Rebels with him and wants to know where he and his people are most needed.”

“This I gotta see,” she muttered. “All right. Ask him if he can come up south of us and take some of the strain off us.”

The request was made. The runner returned. “Says he can do, lieutenant. He’ll be here before dawn.”

Both sides facing each other across the interstate took the time to ease back and lick their wounds and review their situation.

And for the Rebels, it was grim.

“Order our people closest to Atlanta to break through.” Khamsin radioed his orders. “And do it, without fail.”

Cecil’s CP heard the orders from Khamsin and informed Cec.

“Start falling back,” Cec ordered. “Advise Mark and Alvaro we are doing so and to move out toward us. We’ve got to split up and send some people toward Conyers to beef up Mackey’s Misfits.”

“There is a Captain Raines heading that way now, sir. He’s got a platoon with him. Who is Captain Raines, sir?”

“Ben Raines’s son,” Cecil told the startled Rebel. Cecil smiled. “That means that Ben and Ike and Dan aren’t far behind. Any word on Colonel West’s position?”

“Last report was Loganville. They should be getting into battle position any minute, now.”

“How about Colonel Williams?”

“He creamed them, sir,” the Rebel said with a grin. “From listening to radio reports, the IPA doesn’t want any more of Joe Williams.”

A panting runner slid to a stop. “Breakthrough, sir! The IPA just punched through at Barnett. They’re trying to put Colonel Williams’s Rebels in a box.”

“Goddammit!” Cec cursed. “And I don’t have a soul to send there. Any word on Ike’s people?”

“Just crossing into Georgia, sir. They’ll take Highway Sixteen and set up battle lines at Thomson.”

“If there is anything left there to save,” Cec said grimly. “Hang on, Joe,” he said. “Just hang on, buddy.” Chapter 3

Khamsin’s IPA did, indeed, punch a hole into Rebel-held territory; but if they had thoughts of putting Joe Williams and his people in a box, they didn’t know Col. Joe Williams.

But they were about to know him-far better than they wanted to, as it would turn out.

“Mother-fuckers!” Joe swore, and he was not normally a profane man.

His driver and aide, Matt, glanced at him in the darkness. “They about to get you pissed-off, sir?”

“No, Matt,” Joe said, his voice calm. “They have got me pissed-off.”

Joe signaled for his radio operator to come over. Taking the mike from the backpack radio, he said, “This is Colonel Williams. All units form up north and south of my location. Take everything you can stagger with, and leave the rest. When you’re all in position, bump me.”

“What are we gonna do, colonel?” Matt asked.

“We’re gonna charge, son!”

Matt grinned. “Yes, sir!”

Lieutenant Mackey almost jumped out of her

boots when someone touched her on the shoulder. She wheeled around, M-16 coming up.

Colonel West grinned at her. “Sorry, lieutenant. I walk rather softly.”

“Softly’s ass!” Mackey said. “You move like a friggin’ ghost! Who the hell are you?”

“Colonel West, lieutenant. My battalion is in position just north of the interstate at Oxford. General Jefferys moved me to the east a bit. I’ll explain his plan to you. Has Ben Raines’s kid reported in position yet?”

“No, sir.”

“He’s a good troop. Not as savvy as his daddy, of course. But he’s damn good.” His eyes swept over what he could see of the Misfits. He grunted. “Strange-looking bunch.”

Mackey grinned just as Billy Bob strolled up. “They’re doing well for only five days’ training, colonel.” She introduced Billy Bob.

The men shook hands and West said, “Five days’ training?”

“It’s a long story, colonel,” Billy said.

“I’m not even sure I want to hear it!” West said, softening that with a grin. “But if they’re fighting and standing, that’s all that matters.”

He told them both of Cecil’s plan.

“I ain’t gonna second-guess no general,” Billy said. “But if it don’t work … we’re all gonna be in one hell of a mess.”

“That we are, sergeant,” West replied cheerfully. “That we are. All right, lieutenant, I brought a platoon with me on this visit. Looks like you could use a few more people. Where do you want them?”

Before Mackey could reply, a shout rang out. “Here they come! Jesus Christ, there must be two-three thousand of them!”

“How about right where we are, colonel?” Mackey suggested.

“Considering the situation,” West said, grinning a soldier’s grin, “do I have a choice?”

Dan and his teams were just minutes behind Ike, and Ben and Tina only minutes behind Dan. All were pushing harder than road conditions would allow, and the trucks were showing it. But any vehicle that broke down was left, the gear and personnel transferred, and only a few minutes were lost.

Ike would travel on clear across Georgia, following 16 all the way. Ben would break off at Highway Forty-four, at Eatonton, coming up under Mark and Alvaro as they plugged the hole left as Cecil pulled back. Dan would roll about twenty-five miles past Ben’s break-off point, and move north at Sparta, splitting his people, one group going up 22, the other heading up 15. Tina’s teams had already broken off from the main columns and were racing toward Conyers. Those troops of the IPA who were pushing hard at the Misfits and at West’s lone platoon. They were about to find themselves in a box with no way out.

Except death.

“Kill “em all but six, people!” Williams roared into his mike. “And save them for pallbearers. Charge!”

Screaming their fury, the Rebels lunged out of the timber, the brush, the ditches; over the hills and across the old highway, cracked and worn from years of neglect.

The Rebels literally scared the living shit out of many of the IPA.

The Rebels had camouflaged themselves with touch-up paint, leaves, twigs, and mud. They looked and sounded like something straight out of hell.

And fought with the fury of ten times their number.

Teams of Rebels broke through the western lines of the IPA, then turned around and put Khamsin’s people in the same box Khamsin had designed for them.

The Rebels took no prisoners.

The western edge of Khamsin’s box had been broken, punched through at a dozen locations. Now there were no clearly defined battle lines; all along a twenty-mile stretch of highway, it was bloody confusion and death.

Selected teams of Rebels began stripping the uniforms off of the dead IPA troops and pulling them on over their tiger-stripe or lizard-battle dress, then slipping into the confused ranks of Khamsin’s people.

To cut a throat or two.

Joe had given the orders for all his people, after doing as much damage as they could, to work east and form up between Highways 80 and 47. If they could just hold out until dawn, Ike and his people would be in position just south of Thomson. If they could just hold out.

If.

“Little Eagle, this is Big Sister,” Tina radioed. “Are you in position?”

“Ten-four, Big Sister,” Buddy answered. “I’m just south and west of Conyers. What is your position?”

“South and east of same. I’ve got Highway One thirty-eight to my back.”

“Ready to go?”

“Sittin” on ready.”

“Let’s do it, Big Sister.”

Buddy and Tina sealed off the south end of Conyers and began working their teams house to house, building to building; slow, dangerous work.

The first silver rays of sun were just beginning to slip through the darkness, giving the sky a tinted look.

Khamsin’s people, now realizing they were caught in a box, dug in and began fighting from locked positions. And that action served only to spell out their doom.

“Lieutenant Mackey,” Tina radioed.

“Mackey.”

“You have mortar capability?”

“Negative.”

“I do.” West cut in on the transmission.

“Is this Colonel West?”

“Affirmative.”

“We have a large force of IPA dug in hard. Downtown Conyers.” She checked her grid map and gave him the coordinates. “Can you drop some surprises in there, colonel?”

“Ten-four. Are you in position to act as forward observer?”

“Ten-four.”

“Keep your heads down. Mail incoming.”

“Ten-four, colonel.”

Downtown Conyers began exploding in showers of bricks and stone and dust as West’s mortar men hit their targets. Bodies and bits and pieces of bodies soon littered the already littered streets of the Georgia town.

Tina lay behind the rusted ruins of a pickup truck and called the shots in.

As the troops of Khamsin tried to run from the deadly hail of rockets, Tina and Buddy’s troops knocked them sprawling amid the litter with well-placed rifle shots.

To their credit, none of the IPA attempted to surrender.

They had been briefed beforehand that the Rebels did not take prisoners.

Tina called for a halt in the barrage.

The downtown area of Conyers was destroyed. Small fires were caused when WP was mixed with HE mortar.

“Northside friendlies,” Tina radioed. “Please hold fire. We’re commencing mopping up.”

“Ten-four, southside friendlies.”

Buddy and Tina soon linked up, standing and watching as their troops ended the dreams of world conquest for any IPA troop still left alive. Single shots sprang out of the smoky early morning mist. Rebel snipers lay in position, waiting to drop any IPA troop that might have escaped the deadly rain of mortars.

The morning dropped from a noisy, screaming battleground into a hush, broken only by the crunch of boots walking about the rubble.

Southside Rebels met north-side Rebels and Colonel West’s mercenaries in the center of Conyers.

“Orders, colonel?” Tina asked West.

“General Jefferys has pulled back, opening a hole for the IPA to push through. The troops of someone named Mark and Alvaro are moving to plug that hole, trapping the IPA. I have my battalion waiting just east of here. But, there are two battalions of Ashley’s troops moving in on us from the north. Let’s do this: I’ll take the north side of the interstate, you and Buddy and Lieutenant Mackey take the south

side; we’ll all work gradually east. Okay?”

“Sounds good,” Tina said. “Let’s roll.”

Jake and his band of rednecks and white trash and miscreants had not gone far from Athens. Just about ten miles down the road to a little town called Watkinsville. There, Jake had licked his wounds and nurtured his hate, all the while gathering more human trash about him.

And Cecil had pulled his troops back and had set up his CP about four miles away, in what remained of a tiny town named Bishop.

As an undcld cease-fire was occurring for a time, Ike and Dan and Ben were rolling into position.

The troops of Khamsin, who had pursued Cecil as he pulled back, were now positioned at the northernmost edge of the Oconee National Forest. The troops of Mark and Alvaro were only a few miles behind the IPA, filtering quietly through the forest.

A hush fell for a time on the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-mile stretch of battleground.

“We have lost contact with our troops near Conyers,” Khamsin was informed.

“How long?” Khamsin asked, rubbing gritty eyes.

“More than a hour, sir.”

“Our people in the northern Oconee?”

“Resting. They are only a few miles from the black general’s position.”

Khamsin lifted his eyes, meeting the gaze of Hamid. “I know,” Khamsin said softly. “It is not necessary to speak the words; I can read them in your eyes.”

We should have been content with what we had!

Hamid’s eyes said. “I do not understand these people, Khamsin. We have conquered half the existing world, fighting forces that outnumbered us ten to one. Yet this little band of Rebels defeats us at every turn. I do not understand it.”

“Could it be true, Hamid,” Khamsin said, after dismissing his aides. “The rumor, the talk of Ben Raines being some sort of god?”

“Only Allah could answer that question, Khamsin. I certainly cannot.”

“Issue the orders, Hamid. All troops fall back south. Retreat.” But Khamsin was smiling. “But do not scramble this transmission. Not this one. After you have given those orders, instruct our radio people to go to the alternate frequency for one short message.”

For the first time that day, Hamid smiled. “Yes, sir!” Chapter 4

“You no-good, lousy, son of a bitch!” Francis Frenau cursed Emil.

Emil grinned at him. “Why, Francis! What an unchristian-like thing to say. I’m ashamed of you, my boy.”

“You asshole!”

Emil giggled. “Are you having some sort of difficulty, Francis?”

They were meeting alone, just outside a small town-or what was left of it-called Delhi. “Difficulty!” Francis roared, towering above Emil. “You sorry bastard. Hite, I don’t know exactly what you did to me. But I know that you did it. And I think I’m gonna kill you for that.”

Francis was about two and a half times the size of Emil-in more ways than one; the porn makers didn’t call him Long Dong as a come-on. In the porn-flick business one has to put up or shut up. Or perhaps rise up might be more apropos. But the big man stopped flat in his size thirteen sandals when Emil reached up his robe and hauled out a single action .45 about a foot and a half long and jacked back the hammer.

“Whoa, donkey-dick!” Emil told him. “Now you listen to me. You come swishing and yodeling your big ass into my territory, trying to screw up my scam. I’m the one oughta be killing mad, and I’m gettin” there, Bong Dong.”

“That’s Long Dong,” Francis automatically corrected.

“Whatever, you freak. You know the rules of the game: no con artist moves in on another’s territory. You blew it, dinosaur-dick!”

“What’d you do to me, Hite?” Francis demanded.

“Blomm put a curse on you.”

“Blomm’s ass! Save that crap for the stupids. Look, you shrimp. Whatever you done, undo it. My chickies are all upset.”

“Good. Serves you right. Tell you what, Stanley, I might be persuaded to put in a good word for you, with Blomm …”

Francis/stanley rolled his eyes.

“… if you’ll give me your word you’ll get your ass, and your other attachments, outta my territory.”

“Screw you, Hite!” Francis snarled. “I’ll figure out what you did; gimme a little time. And when I do, I’ll be back gunnin’ for your skinny ass.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Emil caught a glimpse of Sister Susie; the chick was even more beautiful in the daylight. He stowed the Buntline special and waved his arms. “Begone, you spawn of evil!” he shouted at Francis. “Begone from the sight of righteousness. Namely, me!”

“Friggin’ nut!” Francis said. But he left, glaring at Emil occasionally. Emil would pat the butt of the .45 and grin at him.

“You big softie!” Emil hissed at him.

Sister Susie sauntered toward Emil. “You’re so forceful,” she told him. “I just love a man that’s sure of himself.”

“Have you come to your senses, Sister Susie?” Emil said, frowning at the young woman.

“I’m sorry I was rude to you the other night. Will you forgive me?”

“Blomm would allow that, I suppose. Come, girl, let us sit by the creek and be comfortable.”

Sitting on the bayou bank, Sister Susie’s robe hiked up to mid-thigh. Emil reached up under what was left of her robe and squeezed.

“Oohhh,” Sister Susie said. “Tell me more about yourself, Brother Emil. Are you firm?”

“Damn right. Plumb rigid at the moment.”

“OO-HHH,” she said, as Emil gave her another squeeze. “That’s good. All the men across the river have suddenly become so … so, flexible.”

“Yeah. I bet they have.”

She reached under his robe and grabbed his woody.

After that, neither one of them even noticed the old mossy-back “gator on the other side of the bayou, watching them through unblinking eyes.

“I hate to say this, general,” Colonel West told Ben. “But this has turned rather anticlimactic.”

“It isn’t over,” Ben said softly. “Khamsin’s got too much pride to let it end like this.”

“What do you mean, Dad?” Tina asked.

Ben, Dan, West, Tina, and Buddy were sitting in Ben’s temporary CP, just outside of Madison.

Ike had set up his CP at Thomson. Cecil had pulled back the northern Oconee Forest.

And Khamsin’s troops had vanished.

“He’s up to something, I believe. I think he’s going

to show us that we’re not the only ones who can play tricks and make them work.”

“I am a bit curious as to what happened to those IPA troops who had followed Cecil,” Dan said.

Ben walked to a map and pointed to an unpaved road leading east out of the Oconee. “I think they slipped out this way and then cut north. I think they’re doing an end-around. Maybe a double end-around.”

Colonel West walked to the map. He studied it for a moment, then nodded his head. “Sure. You’re right, General Raines. They’re going to link up with Ashley’s two battalions north of our lines. And if they’re pulling a double end-around, Ike is in for a bad time of it.”

“If we could just be sure that’s what he’s got up his sleeve,” Ben muttered.

“It’s tough to have one’s own game played against you, isn’t it, general?” West said with that strange smile of his.

Ben faced him. “And you, colonel? Where do you stand in all this? You don’t owe me a thing.”

West shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I am a soldier, general. For hire. Since money, as we knew it, is useless, then I’ve hired out to you for the fight alone. I like your Rebels, Ben Raines. They’re … unique. And to a person, by God, they’ll stand. I think I’ll stick around, general.”

“Glad to have you, colonel.”

“So you want me and my boys to link up with you guys, huh?” Jake told the CO of Ashley’s Second Battalion. “Why the hell should I?”

“I, ah, understand that you had a small argument

with the nigger general, did you not?” Jake flushed. “Maybe. So what if I did?”

“That’s who we are going to fight.”

“No shit! And just where might he be, fancy pants?”

“About twenty-five miles away from where we’re standing. And if you’ll join up with us, we’ll have him outnumbered about eight to one. So how about it?”

“I want him alive,” Jake said. “I got plans for that coon.”

“If we take him alive, he’s all yours, Jake. And that’s a promise.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Quiet,” Cecil muttered. “We opened the door to the trap, but they didn’t like the bait. I wonder why.”

“Sir?” a Rebel said. “General Raines is on the horn.”

“Cec! Good to know you’re still alive.”

“Something’s up, Ben. I can feel it in my old bones.”

“Yeah, I know.” Briefly and quickly, Ben told Cecil of his hunch.

“Okay, I agree with you. But I’m sitting pretty good here. I’ve got Mark and Alvaro just south of me, and we’re dug in deep; good cover. I don’t think those renegade battalions want to try us in the woods.”

“Yes, I agree. But Khamsin still has no telling how many thousands of troops. And they’ve got to be gearing up for something.”

“Ike,” Cecil said flatly.

“That’s what Colonel West and I think. But goddammit, we don’t know for sure.”

“What’s Ike say about it?”

“He’s out of pocket for about an hour.” Ben sighed. “How Colonel Williams?”

“Fat and sassy. That’s why I’m not worried about my position. Joe’s people are sitting just to my east.”

“Cec, I’ve sent out a dozen recon teams, north and south of the interstate. What do you know about a two-bit warlord named Jake?”

“I whipped his ass about eight or ten days ago. Up in Athens.”

“He’s linked up with Ashley’s renegade battalions. And they’re not far from your position. That man carries a lot of hate for you, Cec.”

“I should have killed him.”

“Next time you meet, please do. Cec, recon teams are reporting that all signs, including civilian sight verification, indicate that Khamsin’s people have moved east. I’m going to play out my hunch and bet that Ike’s in for a bad time of it.”

“All right, Ben. What are your orders?”

“I’m going to leave Ashley’s battalions and this Jake person for you and your people to neutralize. I’ll take Joe’s bunch and what I’ve got with me and head east. Pray we’re right, Cec.”

“Will do, Ben. Luck to you.”

Ben signed off and turned to Dan. “Dan, we know that Khamsin’s people bugged out to the south. Indications are that they then cut northeast. They’re after Ike. That’s the only thing I can figure. I’ve got Buddy and Tina and their teams out working deep recon, gradually moving toward Ike’s position. So here is what we’ll do.” Ben’s eyes touched the eyes of Colonel West. “We’ll all work east. All of us working south of the interstate. Work slowly and miss nothing,

for we don’t know what in the hell we’re walking into this time around.”

Dan and West nodded in agreement.

“I’ll leave Lieutenant Mackey and her … Misfits,” he said and smiled, “where they are. We’ve got to have somebody keeping watch on the backyard while we’re gone. Order your people to get some rest, some food, and to check equipment. We’ll be moving out at dawn tomorrow.”

The mercenary and the Englishman exited the CP. Ben, Denise walking beside him, walked to his communications truck.

“Bump Ike again, please,” he told the operator.

“Howdy, Ben.” Ike’s voice popped out of the speaker.

“Where in the hell have you been?” Ben asked.

“Oh, out lookin” around,” Ike said, knowing Ben’s sharpness was from concern, not anger. “Sure is quiet for all the rush it took to get here.”

Ben told him of his hunches.

“Sounds right to me, Ben. But I’m sittin’ pretty good where I am. Khamsin, so I’m told, has reached our status when it comes to heavy guns. He just ain’t got “em. He, like us, has got mortars running out the yin-yang, but no long range and heavy shooters.”

“But he’s gonna have you outgunned with those mortars, Ike. He can lay back and do a hell of a lot of damage.”

“True.”

“I’ve half a mind to order you out of there, Ike.”

“Naw! Hell, we gotta face this dude sometime, Ben. Way I figure it, might as well do it now and get it over with.”

“All right, Ike. Head’s up, now.”

“Five by five, Ben.”

“I’ll be pulling out before dawn.” “See you soon, partner.”

West found Ben sitting alone, on the steps of a long-deserted house. He appeared to be deep in thought.

“Rather a pensive look on your face, general,” West remarked.

Ben smiled. “Pensive? An interesting word for a mercenary to use.”

West sat down and laughed. “What makes a mercenary, general? You were one yourself.”

“I always preferred soldier of fortune.”

West chuckled. “Semantics, Ben Raines. If you dip a rose in shit, you’ve still got a rose, haven’t you?”

Denise was sitting a few yards away, listening.

“I guess I was pensive, colonel. I’ve just got this thought that Khamsin is pulling one on us. Some little … elusive feeling deep inside me. But I can’t seem to pin it down.”

“Some classic military move, general?”

“Could well be.”

“Well, let’s hope that in this case, history doesn’t repeat itself and this turns out to be another Little Big Horn.”

“That depends entirely on which side we elect to be on, doesn’t it?”

Both men were silent for a few moments, listening to the sounds and smells of late summer. The thick smell of wildflowers and honeysuckle; the happy calling of the birds.

“Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull suckered Custer, didn’t they?” West asked.

“Yes.” Ben looked at him. “I think you’ve hit on it, colonel.”

“Maybe. It was just a thought.”

“Colonel, if Khamsin’s men run, don’t follow them. Not even if it appears, especially if it appears, a victory is certain.”

“I’ll pass the word. Ike?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know if Ike is in any danger, or not. I have this little feeling that Khamsin has decided to revert back to his roots.”

“He was quite a terrorist.”

“Yes. And that may be what he’s heading back to being. I’m thinking that Khamsin’s been shown he can’t beat us by sheer numbers. He’s taken some awfully heavy losses butting heads with us. I’d guess he’s lost a full third of his forces.”

“Yes. And that’s got to be telling on the rest of his people.”

“Maybe. But bear in mind that these people are fanatics. To die in battle means instant entry to heaven.”

West glanced at Ben. “Oh, shit!” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

West rose abruptly and walked off. Ben sat on the steps and watched him leave.

The mercenary was back in fifteen minutes, Dan with him.

And with Dan, a full platoon of Rebels.

“Now, wait just a goddamned minute!” Ben said, rising.

“Sorry, general,” Dan said. “This is the way it’s going to be. The colonel explained what you both feel is going down. Get used to the idea of being surrounded.”

“And you probably spoke with Ike, too, didn’t you?” Ben asked sourly.

“But of course!” Dan smiled.

“Wonderful,” Ben muttered. He turned and walked off.

The platoon followed him. En masse.

Ben stopped and turned around. “I’m going to the bathroom! I don’t need an audience.”

“They’ll turn their backs, general,” Dan said cheerfully.

Ben walked off, muttering. Chapter 5

It took Emil a full half day to get over the sight of that alligator, just about ready to chew off his leg. Along with other parts of his anatomy.

What had saved them both was the hot breath of the gator on Emil’s bare ass.

“I’m telling you!” Emil said. “That friggin’ “gator was forty feet long if it was an inch.”

Emil’s ‘gator was closer to fifteen feet than forty; but still a good-sized ‘gator.

“I wouldn’t worry about that ‘gator as much as I’d worry about Francis Freneau,” Brother Matthew told him. “Francis has sworn to get even. And we’re running out of that stuff to put in the water over there.”

“I ain’t goin” back to Monroe no more,” Brother Carl said. “That place gives me the squirts just thinkin’ “bout them Night P.”

“It’s not just Monroe,” Brother Roger said. “It’s every city in the country.”

“There isn’t any more of it over there anyway,” Emil said. “I thought sure he’d be gone by now. Hell, nearly all his followers are over here with us.”

“Listen!” Brother Matthew said, holding up a finger. “Bagpipes!”

“Here comes Francis!” Sister Susie called.

“Wonderful,” Emil muttered. “What the hell’s he got up his sleeve now?”

“Them bagpipes is givin” me a headache,” Brother Carl said.

Francis climbed up onto the hood of a rusting old car parked by the side of the road and opened his big arms. “Come gather around, my children,” he called. “I have something of great importance to tell you.”

“You reckon he’s got a hard-on?” Brother Roger said.

Emil looked at Roger. “With him, believe me, you’d know it.”

Emil and his immediate group hung back; the others gathered around.

“My heart is heavy, brothers and sisters,” Francis said, placing one big hand on his chest. “An old, old friend betrayed me. Cut me with an invisible knife.”

“Aaahhh!” the crowd said in sympathy.

“I trusted this man; loved him more like a brother than a friend. But,” he said and gave a mighty sigh, “but as with Caesar, I must say to Brother Emil, Et tu Brute?”

“He et what?” Brother Carl asked.

Everyone ignored him. Emil felt many eyes on him. Hard, condemning eyes comcoming from his own flock.

“You’re a liar, Francis!” Emil shouted. “I ain’t done nothin’ to you.”

Francis smiled lovingly at Emil. “There is no rancor in my heart for you, Emil. Your feet simply slipped from the path of righteousness.”

“Say what’s on your mind, Stanley,” Emil said. “And then begone with you, or I’ll call down the wrath of Blomm.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” Francis said. He flung

his arms wide. “Call down the wrath of this Blomm, then. I challenge you to do that, Emil. For you see, brothers and sisters, there is no such god as Blomm!”

The crowd oohed and aahed and drew back, fearful of his blatant blasphemy.

“You lie!” Emil squalled. “Blomm is real. Don’t push me, Ledbetter.”

“Then tell this figment of your overactive imagination to strike me dead, Emil,” Francis said. “I’m waiting.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Francis. You’d have to do a mighty hurt to me before I’d do anything like that. You see, Francis, unlike you, I am a gentle person.”

Francis lost a little ground with that remark. He narrowed his eyes and stared at Emil.

“You poor fool,” Francis said. “I didn’t want to have to do this. But? …”

Francis lifted his arms and white doves flew out from his sleeves.

The crowd did some oohing and aahing.

The doves circled, dropping some shit on the heads of the faithful.

Francis did some of the colored handkerchief tricks: pulled a half dollar out of both ears and juggled a few balls.

The crowd loved it.

Francis said, “Let’s all urge Brother Emil up here … I’ll step down. Perhaps then he can explain why he sent some of his men slipping into my camp in the dead of night, like thieves, to poison me and my brothers?”

“I did no such thing!” Emil shouted.

“You are not truthful, Brother Emil,” Francis said. Reaching into the pocket of his snow-white robe, Francis pulled out a small vial and held it up for the crowd to see.

Emil felt a little sick at his stomach.

He felt a little sicker when Francis held out his hand, and one of his men gave him the box the vials had come out of.

“Sister Susie,” Francis said. “My dear sweet lovely child. Does this box look familiar to you?”

Susie said it did.

“When was the first time you saw it, dear?”

“In Brother Emil’s car. At night. In Monroe. Near the hospital.”

“That don’t prove nothing!” Emil hollered. “There’s boxes all over the damn place.”

“True,” Francis said. “But one of the men who has been poisoning me has a small cut on the sole of his right sandal.”

“Well, shit!” Brother Matthew said.

Emil took a deep breath. Drawing himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much, he pointed a finger at Francis. “Now you hear me, Ledbetter. And bear in mind this was your idea. I’m going into meditation now. Seclusion. And I’ll be speaking with Blomm. At high noon, two days from now. We’ll meet again. Right here on this spot. Then, then I shall show you the power of Blomm!”

“Bull-dooky!” Francis said.

“You’ll pay for that, Ledbetter,” Emil warned. “Blomm is angry; I can feel his mighty anger.”

“Horse-poo!” Francis scoffed.

“Be here!” Emil told him. “All of you!” he roared.

“Emil,” Brother Matthew said. “What are you gonna do two days from now, at high noon?”

Emil looked at him. “Hell, Matthew, I don’t know.”

Ben canceled all travel orders for his Rebels. His new orders: Hold your positions. Dig in. Keep your heads down. And be very wary of tricks.

The hours passed slowly and very quietly. The Rebels rested, ate, took much-needed baths, and cleaned equipment. Just like any army that was ever formed. That much never changes.

The Rebels constantly monitored any known frequency of Khamsin. The bands remained silent. If Khamsin was communicating with his troops, it was on a frequency not known to the Rebels.

“He’ll strike,” Ben said. “He’s a very impatient man. That much I do know about him.”

“What’s the word from any recon team?” Colonel West asked.

“A lot of troops about forty-five miles south of us,” Ben replied. “Stretching from Barnesville all the way over to Waynesboro. I got that word about two minutes ago. I was just about to call a meeting of CO’S and platoon leaders. I’ve ordered Buddy and Tina back in.”

West sat for a time in silence. He wondered what emotions Ben Raines might be experiencing, knowing his two kids were out in the field with small units.

“I’ll see that the word is passed, general,” West said. “I’d like to see Kahmsin’s new lines. I’m curious about them.”

“Tina and Buddy both reported that Kahmsin has forced the people living south of us into forced labor camps. It looks like he’s setting up a permanent barrier.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to know,” West said with a sigh. “General, you are aware that east of Atlanta, stretching south from Rome to Newnan,

that area is controlled by outlaws and warlords?”

“I’ve heard.” He glanced at West, accurately guessing what the man was getting at. “Well, now,” Ben said softly, “that would put us in a box, wouldn’t it?”

“Both of us were wrong, general,” West admitted. “And those outlaws and thugs and warlords over east have only to take one look at Khamsin’s superior forces and they’ll join up with him.”

Ben’s laugh was short, holding no mirth. “That son of a bitch! He suckered us, colonel. He turned our own game against us.”

“I fail to see the humor in it, general. We have gotten ourselves into a bind, my friend.”

Ben waved at Denise. “Bring me my map case, would you please?”

Ben spread the map on the ground, just as Dan strolled up. Briefly, West told Dan about the new development, saying finally, “Whether it’s fact or fiction, Dan, remains to be seen.”

“Let’s take it from the east, boys,” Ben said, tracing a line on the map with a finger. “The bridges are blown from Hartwell to Augusta. Every one of them.”

West glanced at him, and Ben explained the why of that.

“You had no choice in the matter, general,” the mercenary said. “I would have done the same thing.”

“North of us,” Ben said, “we’ve got two of Ashley’s battalions, the company that Ashley brought east with him out of Kansas, and the group that this Jake person has gathered around him.”

Ben paused for a moment, silent so long, Dan said, “What’s wrong, general?”

“I see Ashley’s fine hand in all of this,” Ben explained. “I’ll be willing to bet you all that this stretch here, Interstate Seventy-five, running north

and south, is being closed down by Khamsin. And he’s probably swung those outlaws and warlords north and south, leaving us one hole to run to.”

“Atlanta,” West whispered. “The city of the dead.”

“And what is our fine and noble Gen. Ben Raines doing now?” Khamsin asked Hamid.

“Nothing, general,” the XO replied. “Everything, along all fronts, is very quiet.”

Now it was Khamsin’s turn to worry. “What is that man up to, Hamid? It isn’t like him to sit and do nothing.”

“Perhaps he now realizes the box you have placed him in?”

“Perhaps. He certainly is not a stupid man. Just idealistic. Those thugs east of Atlanta?”

“Fell right into line, Khamsin. Our troops did not have to fire a shot.”

“And they are being repositioned?”

“Yes, sir. Just as you ordered. They are surrounding the city from the north, south, and west.”

Khamsin smiled. “I will have to reassess my first opinion of Ashley. His plan is a good one. But there is one weak part of it, Hamid. Our lines are not as strong as I would like them to be. Raines could possibly punch through.”

“Begging your pardon, sir. But if that happens, it will not be through our people to the south.”

“No, I don’t think so, either. But I am not sure of the troops to the north.”

“They are … not first quality, to be sure,” Hamid agreed. “Perhaps I, myself, might take a battalion up to not only reinforce them, but to keep an eye on them.”

Khamsin looked at the XO. The man was no

longer young. He sighed. “All right, Hamid. Perhaps that would be best. May the blessing of Allah go with you.”

“Thank you, General Khamsin. I’ll take the reorganized Second Battalion and leave at once.”

Long after Hamid had gone, Khamsin called for an aide. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me if any news comes through. Any news. No matter how unimportant it might seem.”

“Yes, sir.”

But sleep would not come to Khamsin. He tossed in his bed and finally, with an oath, threw back the thin cover and rose to sit on the side of the bed.

Ben Raines was up to something. Khamsin was sure of it. But what? He checked his watch. Time for prayers.

All good religious people need prayer. Even terrorists.

“I’m not going to order anyone to do this,” Ben said. “And when I make my request for volunteers, I don’t want a bunch of horseshit bravado jumping to the fore. Is that understood?”

It was.

Ben was addressing senior sergeants, platoon leaders, CO’S and XO’S, along with Ike, Cecil, Dan, Tina, and Buddy. He had called them to his CP.

“What’d you have on your mind, Ben?” Ike asked.

“First I’ll tell you how it’s going to be done, and then I’ll inform you of what is going to be done.

“First of all it’s going to be done very quietly. There is going to be one team. Just one. Thirty people. Khamsin wants to push us into Atlanta. All right. But first let’s check it out.” He grinned. “If my idea works, all of a sudden Khamsin is going to be

facing an empty line, all filled with imaginary soldiers.”

“Ever’ time you start grinnin’ like that, Ben,” Ike said, “I get a funny feelin’ in the pit of my stomach.”

“I, of course, will lead the team, general,” said Dan, who stepped forward.

“No, I will!” Ike said.

“That’s nonsense,” Cecil told them. “I shall lead the team.”

Colonel West had joined the group late. “Whatever is going down, I feel that I should go in first.”

Ben let them squabble and then made up his mind.

He winked at Buddy and said, “I’ve decided who will be team leader, people.”

The hubbub ceased as they all looked at Ben. Finally, Tina asked, “Who, Dad?”

“Me!” Ben announced. Chapter 6

Ben pulled out at full dark, Buddy riding in the Jeep with him. Behind them were several trucks and Jeeps, filled with Rebels and supplies and ammo enough for several days.

As they rolled past Conyers, Lieutenant Mackey and Billy Bob waved at them from the shoulder of the interstate. Both Ben and Buddy saluted the pair and then drove on, entering the darkness.

Just about a mile from the loop that circled the city, Ben halted the short column. “We’ll camp here until dawn. Four guards out and in close, two-hour shifts.”

Buddy climbed up on top of a rusted old truck and stared at the outline of Atlanta. “I can see fire in there, general.”

“Colonel West called it the city of the dead.”

“Have you ever seen one of these people?” Buddy asked.

“No. Not that I know of. But from what I’ve heard, they aren’t pleasant to look upon.”

“Is it their fault? The way they are, I mean.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“That is what the Old Man told me. But he also told me to avoid them at all costs.”

Buddy climbed down to stand by his father.

Ben said, “Your grandfather had seen some of these … people?”

“Many times. He said they are bitter about what they’d become, and they hate everybody not like them. I asked him once if there was not some good in them.” Buddy paused.

“And?”

“He said he had not yet found any.”

“I guess that about sums it all up then, doesn’t it, boy?”

“And for that, we will destroy them?”

“Only if they open the fight, son. We’re not here as a conquering army. Now go get some sleep. I want us standing on the edge of the city before first light.” But Ben wondered about that first remark.

“Eerie,” Ben heard one of his Rebels mutter.

And Ben could not disagree with the one word summation. The silent, windswept scene that lay before them was eerie. And it contained yet another one-word description: deadly.

“They are moving around us, father,” Buddy said softly, walking to Ben’s side.

“I can hear them, but I can’t see them.”

“I caught a glimpse of a few. They are robed, their robes dark. They blend in well with the night around them.”

Gentle fingers of silver-gray began pushing up from the east, from the backs of the Rebels as they faced the stark outline of what had once been called the Hub of the South.

“Down,” Ben called, his voice soft.

The Rebels crouched down, close to their vehicles, presenting no targets to whatever lurked in the darkness.

And no one among them knew for sure exactly what type of human being moved silently around them in the ink of night.

“The time is against us.” All heard the voice spring out of the murk.

“Take them!” another voice called, a harshness in the command.

“The light! The light!” A third voice was added.

The dawning had intensified, the silver fingers becoming hands of silver, with just a touch of gold and white.

The Rebels couched beside their vehicles, listening as the scuff of sandals on concrete faded. The mutely lighted night grew silent.

Ben stood up, easing the slight pain in a bad knee. The road they were on became more clearly defined as the dawning continued to lighten the landscape.

“I’d guess at least a hundred had surrounded us,” Ben said, looking around him. “But they’re sure scared of the light. Fortunately for us,” he added.

Ben glanced at his Rebels. They were calm, standing ready. Buddy was probably the youngest of the team. The rest were all in their late twenties or early thirties, hardened and seasoned combat vets. Men and women who had been with the Rebels for years. Ben knew them all on a first-name basis. And knew, too, that there was no backup in any of them. They would stand to the last person.

“Three groups,” Ben said, walking to his Jeep and sitting down in the passenger seat. “Well work a block apart, maintaining radio contact at all times.” He laid his Thompson across his knees, the muzzle

pointing away from the driver’s seat. “Drive boy,” he said to Buddy.

After only a half hour, Ben realized no one had anything to fear from the Night People-not during the day. For some reason, as yet unknown to Ben, those who lived for the night were very fearful of the sun. Why that was, he did not know. And wasn’t particularly interested in finding out. He felt some degree of pity for the people; but it was not overwhelming within him.

Physically scarred and mentally traumatized by the bombings and aftermath of the Great War and the awful sickness that came a decade later, yes, surely they were. But instead of seeking out help from those able to give it, the Night People had banded together, electing instead to hate and despise those not like them. Instead of holding out the hand of friendship, asking for understanding and help, the Night People had decided to kidnap and God only knew what else, in order to salve their bodies and minds.

“Piss on them,” Ben muttered, his eyes working from left to right. He was mapping out a route through the city.

“Beg pardon, sir?” Buddy asked.

“Look over there.” Ben pointed.

The naked bodies of a man and woman were hanging from a power pole.

“Pull over there,” Ben told him.

Ben got out and walked closer to the bloated and stinking bodies. They had been tortured, and tortured expertly, making the agony last a long, long time. And big meaty hunks of flesh were missing from their bodies.

“Why?” Buddy asked, not leaving the Jeep.

“I suspect because they are normal; not affected by the bombings or the sickness that followed. Now we

know what kind of pricks we’re up against.”

Ben got back into the Jeep. He lifted the mike to his lips. “Eagle One to West on tach.”

“Go, Eagle One.”

“I’m at Eastland Road and Twenty-three,” Ben said. “Send two platoons with several days’ rations and plenty of ammo to my sector, please.”

“Ten-four.”

The platoons rolled in at nine o’clock, led by Colonel West.

“Just couldn’t resist it, huh, colonel?” Ben grinned at him.

“Got to go where the action is, general. What’s up?”

“I’ve ordered everyone to start working their way west. Slow and easy, with no rush. They’ll be working inverted-east to west first. In other words, Lieutenant Mackey and her Misfits will be the last to come out.”

“I’m with you,” West said.

“When I give the word, in about thirty-six hours, we’re going to roll through Atlanta. At night.”

West arched one eyebrow at that bit of news. He said nothing.

“When we start, colonel, nothing, nothing is going to stop us. Now we can’t use Interstate Twenty to get through the city; we can’t use the loops or the bypasses. The Night People have massive road blocks up damn near everywhere you want to look.”

“If you’ve advanced no further than this point,” West said, “how do you know the loops are blocked?”

“I don’t know for sure about the northern loops; Two eighty-five, Eighty-five, and Seventy-five. But both Buddy and Tina tried the southern route getting in here. They had to circle around. I can only assume

the same has been done to the north.”

“And you want me and my men to do exactly what, general?”

“Help us find the best route through the city. Right down the heart of the city. And I don’t have to tell you why it must be that way.”

West nodded. “Khamsin will have spotters north and south, covering those areas for any signs of movement. But …” West paused, thinking. “How do we clear the route of the Night People without bringing attention to what we’re doing? Gunfire is going to carry a long way.”

“The Night People will be sleeping during the day, hiding from the light. We go house to house, building to building. We use knives and twenty-twos; use hollow-nosed shorts. If your people have sound suppressors available, use them.”

“Going to be a distasteful and bloody son of a bitch, general.”

“Yes. But if you have any doubts about what kind of people we’re dealing with, take your men one block, that direction; take the first road west and have a look.”

West and his men were back in half an hour. None of them looked too pleased.

“Find it?” Ben asked.

West nodded his head. “The couple … and more. We found some … normal-appearing children who had been tortured and disemboweled. Took them a long time to die. I have no more qualms, general.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

It was bloody and awful and no one among them liked it. But after they found more tortured and mutilated bodies of “normal” people-men and

women and little children-the job became less distasteful.

The Rebels and the mercenaries found a breeding center in the ruins of a college. It was there that the Night People bred with normal people, mostly women, in the hopes of straining out the sickness with new generations. After the children were born, the women were usually killed, or kept as slaves. None of the women rescued by the Rebels knew where their babies had been taken. Or what lay in store for the children.

“Were the children free of the sickness?” Ben asked.

The looks in the eyes of the women gave him his silent answer.

“Hideous!” Colonel West said.

“Any idea how many of these … communities there might be scattered around the nation?” Ben asked.

“Hundreds,” he was told. “In every city of any

size.”

“It appears that our next foe has been lined out for us, general,” Colonel West said. “Our next foe, colonel?”

West smiled. “It appears that action travels with you, general. I like that. I get bored with inactivity.”

“Thought you couldn’t live under my rules, colonel.”

“A woman is not the only creature on God’s earth with the right to change its mind.”

Standing amid the fresh gore, Ben grinned and extended his hand. West shook it.

“Father,” Buddy said. “I hate to break into such camaraderie.” Both men looked at him. “But night is going to catch us right in the middle of this place.”

West smiled. “The boy is right.”

“There is something else, too, Father,” Buddy said. “All these people are armed.” He waved at the dead who walked the night. “So that tells me that occasional gunfire from within the city would not unduly alarm any of Khamsin’s men on the outskirts.”“

“Smart, too,” Ben said with a laugh.

They had cleared and secured more than half the route Ben had mapped out when one look at the sky told them dusk was about an hour away.

They pulled their vehicles into a covered parking area and made ready for the night-and the people from the night who were sure to come at them.

“Get as much rest as you can right now,” Ben urged them. “I think we’re going to be very busy later on.”

They had seen areas where the Night People had, it looked to them, held open-air meetings. Many torches had been found; or pieces of torches. And that gave Ben an idea.

“Cocktails,” Ben told his people. “Find as many small bottles as you can and fill them up with gasoline. They won’t make as much noise as a grenade, and can do a hell of a lot of damage, physically and psychologically.”

They soon had enough Molotov cocktails to withstand a siege. Which is exactly what Ben felt would be coming at them.

As dusk crawled into full night, robed and hooded figures began moving out of the murk. They darted from rusted old abandoned cars, slithered into and out of doorways, and appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in broken windows high above the closed parking area where the Rebels and the mercenaries were forted up.

“They have to eat,” Ben said, more to himself than to Colonel West, who was standing beside him.

The colonel looked at him as if Ben had taken leave of his senses. “What?”

“They have to eat,” Ben repeated. “And if they never leave the city … what the hell do they eat?”

“You pick the damnedest times to think about food, Ben.”

“Where do they bury their dead?” Ben pondered aloud. “We’ve not found anyplace. And if they’ve killed as many people as those women over there told us,” Ben said, jerking a thumb toward the small, frightened, huddled-together knot of rescued women, “it would number into the hundreds, right?”

“Yes, at least. What are you driving at?”

“The hanged and tortured bodies we’ve found. I think that might be some sort of ceremony; some sort of paganistic rite.”

“I’ll go along with that. But what does that have to do with food?”

Ben looked at him in the gathering gloom. “I think the Night People are cannibals. I think they eat any human they’re ready to dispose of.”

West looked at the half-eaten sandwich in his hand, grimaced, and wrapped it back up and stuck it in his pocket. “Shit, Ben!” Chapter 7

“They’re all around us,” one of Colonel West’s men called softly. He was stationed on the second level of the parking garage. “I think they’re tryin’ to run a board across from the other building.”

“Well, Jeff,” West returned the call, “I hope you know what to do about that.”

Jeff’s laughter drifted down to Ben and West.

There were several sharp pops from above them as Jeff fired, using .22 caliber ammunition.

A short scream cut the night, the yowling cut short as a robed body hit the concrete, falling out of the second floor of the building on one side of the parking garage.

More small caliber pistols cracked spitefully. Choked-off screams ripped the warm night. Colonel West’s walkie-talkie crackled.

“They decided to try another plan,” a mercenary’s voice informed him.

“They’re massing behind the building!” another voice said from out of the walkie-talkie.

“Fire-bomb them!” West ordered.

The rear of the parking garage exploded in searing light as the gas-filled cocktails were hurled at the charging Night P. On the heels of the bouncing fire, the screaming of men in pain cut at the nerves of those inside.

Human shapes, encased in fire as the flames ate at clothing and flesh, ran helter-skelter into the darkness. Some made it only as far as the street, where they lay, kicking and howling in agony as the flames burned life away.

“Bastards!” Colonel West muttered.

A robed and hooded figure suddenly leaped in front of Ben; how he got inside was beside the point. He was.

Ben could smell the fetid, sour body odor of the man as his fingers snaked their way around Ben’s neck. Ben butt-stroked the man with his Thompson, hearing the jaw shatter as the wood slammed against the man’s face. The robed man fell to the dirty and oil-stained floor of the garage, unconscious.

“Tie him up,” Ben ordered. “I want to talk to him later. And someone find the hole this bastard used to get in here and plug it up.”

“The third level is full of the bastards!” a man shouted, his voice echoing around the curving concrete driveways.

“Guess that answers my question,” Ben said. The reverberating sounds of weapons on full automatic hammered throughout the parking garage.

“Buddy!” Ben shouted. “Three or four of you get in Jeeps, put the lights on bright, and get up there, blind the bastards. Let’s see how they react to harsh light.”

“Yes, sir!”

Engines coughed into life, the Jeeps surging and

roaring up the levels. Howls of fright tore the garage as the Night People were blinded by the headlights.

Buddy’s Thompson chugged in rapid fire, the big slugs knocking lines of stinking, robed men spinning and sprawling.

“Mop it up!” Buddy shouted, fast changing clips.

Ben lifted his walkie-talkie. “Bring me some prisoners, son.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re falling back, Ben,” West said calmly, as he lifted his M-16 and brought several more of the running Night People down. One pulled himself up to an elbow, his mouth screaming curses at the mercenary. Without changing expression, West shot him through the head.

The curses were abruptly and forever stilled.

“I never have liked for people to cuss me,” West said, changing clips.

“Yes.” Ben smiled. “I can see where it makes you a bit testy.”

The two soldiers exchanged knowing glances.

The night settled back into a smoky, burning stillness, broken only by the moaning and crying of the wounded, the pop of fading flames from the cocktails, and the rattle of men and women changing clips of ammo.

“Report!” Ben shouted.

No one in his command, Rebel or mercenary, was dead; a few were suffering minor wounds. Nothing serious.

“Lucky,” Ben said. “But you can bet those outside aren’t through with us.”

“Those at the windows and ramps stand back,” West ordered. “Reserve up. Get some rest.” He shifted his gaze. “Your son coming with several prisoners, Ben.”

Ben ordered camp lanterns lit in what was once an office of some sort, and the Night People were brought in, a sullen bunch. Buddy and Colonel West sat with Ben in the room.

All three stared in shock as the hoods were jerked back, exposing the face of the prisoners.

Their faces were twisted and scarred; some were missing lips and nose.

One made the mistake of spitting at Ben.

Ben rose to his boots and knocked him to the floor. He reached down and jerked the man to his sandals, shoving him hard against a wall.

“Bring the others in,” Ben ordered. He lined them up against a wall. “You all have my sympathies for what has happened to you. The Great War was not your fault. What happened to you, initially, was certainly not your fault. But that does not give you the right to attack people without provocation, to torture and rape, and to subsist on human flesh.”

The Night People exchanged glances at that remark, and Ben knew he’d been right in his assumptions.

“Fuck you!” a scar-faced man hissed at Ben.

“So you don’t deny that you live on human flesh?”

“We deny or admit nothing,” another man told him. “Our way of life is none of your business, Raines.”

“You know me?” Ben asked, surprise in his voice.

“We know of you,” the man said. “Our leader has said you are our greatest enemy, and you will, someday, be destroyed.”

“A lot of people have tried to do that,” Ben said, sitting on the edge of a battered old desk. “I’m still here.”

The stinking bunch glared at Ben. The one who seemed to be the spokesman said, “Kill us and have done with it, Raines. Our lives are scarcely worth living, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“In addition to all else that you may be, not much of it worthwhile, you’re also a liar. No man wants to die. If you wanted to die so badly, you wouldn’t be trying to improve your lot.”

The sullen, smelly bunch glared at Ben.

“Eaters of human flesh,” Ben muttered. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Keep them here until dawn, good light, and then throw them out in the street,” West suggested. “It would be fitting.”

“No!” one shouted. “Well burn forever if you do that.”

“Who says you will?” Ben asked.

The spokesman hesitated, then said, “The Judges.”

“And who might they be?”

“They who judge.”

“Are you being a smart-ass?” West asked.

“The Judges are the men and women who sit on the council,” the Night Person told the mercenary. “They rule all who follow the night.”

West shook his head and grimaced. “We had enough kooks and whackos and crackpots and nuts before the war. But what came after boggles the mind.”

Ben asked a dozen more questions, but received no reply to any of them. It was obvious that the prisoners believed they were going to die and had made ready for it. “Buddy, take them to a secure room and lock them in. We’ll decide what to do with them later on.”

When they were gone, West said, “What are you

going to do with them, Ben?”

“I don’t know. Suggestions?”

West shrugged. “Kill them now or kill them later, I suppose. But I have never enjoyed shooting unarmed men. What we did today and will be doing tomorrow with the sleeping Night People was necessary, I guess. It’s all come down to a matter of survival for us all. Was war ever fun for you, Ben?”

“What an odd question at this time, colonel. Fun? I don’t know whether that noun fits, or not. But maybe it does. For the sake of argument, I’ll say yes.”

West smiled. “War is what it’s all come to, Ben. This is it.” He slapped the palm of his hand down on the desk. “All computers and their banks of knowledge; all the statesmen and intellectuals, and writers and thinkers and doers. Well,” he sighed, “the machines are rusting and the trillions of words are gathering dust. The statesmen and the thinkers and the teachers … all gone. It’s all come down to you and me and Ike and Cecil and Buddy and Tina and Dan. Modern day cavemen. With automatic weapons instead of clubs.”

“West, you’re a frustrated intellectual. You know that?”

The mercenary laughed, the sound echoing in the small concrete room. “You’re correct to a degree, you know, but don’t let it get out. That would ruin my reputation.”

The Night People kept the Rebels and the mercenaries awake that seemingly endless darkness before dawn, but no more hard attacks were launched by them. They had learned that while they might outnumber those in the parking garage, their fighting

skills were not nearly so honed to perfection.

At dawn, Ben and his people once more began their grisly hunt and kill mission, mapping out a clear route of escape.

Teams rescued a few more handfuls of women and kids, and one of the groups gave truth to Ben’s awful theory. The Night People were cannibals.

It made the hunt and kill mission a bit easier to take.

At noon, the Rebels moving west began calling in.

Ike and his bunch were on the outskirts of Atlanta. They had traveled all through the night, gathering people behind them as they came. They had seen no sign of any of Khamsin’s troops.

“How far is the next column behind you?” Ben radioed.

“Sittin’ right on my ass.”

“Get inside the city proper,” Ben ordered. “Get them all in. We’re going to be busting out of here at dark. Did you and the others set up the dummy installations?”

“Ten-four, Ben. From a distance, they look just like the real thing.”

“Come on, Ike.”

“Rolling.”

The Rebels had left behind as many trucks and other vehicles as they could spare. They had dragged in others and placed them around their positions. They had made straw dummies with real weapons before them. They had left behind many tents and clothes hanging on the line. From a distance, the camps appeared the same.

It would appear to any spotters that some Rebels were staying, others were moving out to beef up the long battle line that was the interstate. Ben hoped, at least.

“So we’re going down the big fat middle of Atlanta, following this road, until we intersect with Twenty at Carroll Road?” Ike asked.

“That’s it,” Ben told him.

“It’s worked so far, Ben. From all indications, Khamsin thinks we’re just spreadin’ out a little.”

Buddy strolled up. “The bridge over the Chattahoochee is intact,” he told his father. “I left a team there to see that it remains so.”

“Good,” Ben said. To Ike: “Where the hell is Cecil?”

“Relax, Ben. He’s about a half hour behind me. And he’s going to stay that way,” Ike added.

Ben’s look was sharp. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Cecil’s pulling rear guard duty, Ben. Told me early this morning. Said you wasn’t gonna like it, but that’s the way it was going to be.”

Ben opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. There was no point in arguing. Once Cecil made up his mind, that was that.

Ike waved a Rebel to him. He outlined the plan and said, “Take it back to General Jefferys. And son … tell him that I said to watch his ass. He may be a night-fighter, but he still bleeds red.”

The scout grinned. “Yes, sir.”

West had listened without comment. He said, “Cecil Jefferys is a very brave man, Ben.”

Smiling, Ben said, “For a black person, you mean,” he said, needling the mercenary.

“Like I said, Ben: There are exceptions to every rule.”

Ben checked his Thompson. “West, if you ever decide exactly where you stand, you are going to be a

person to be reckoned with.”

“I am a soldier, Ben. Nothing more, nothing less.” But Ben wasn’t so sure of that. He wondered what the mercenary really was-and wondered if he’d ever find out. And finally, he wondered if he really wanted to know. Chapter 8

The western-most team, a squad of West’s mercenaries, radioed back that the route was clear. The route had been cleared of all blockades, living and stationary.

It was late afternoon in the dead city of Atlanta.

“All units in?” Ben asked.

“Everybody here, Ben,” Ike told him. “Joe Williams’s gang pulled in right behind Mark and Alvaro’s team. Cecil and his battalion have bivouacked out at the old federal prison farm, just south of Interstate Twenty.”

Big Louie’s timer, back in Kansas, had about twenty hours to go before the bird would fly.

“It worked,” Ben said. “I had my doubts, but it really worked. But the next few hours are critical for us.”

“I’ve ordered guards out and the rest to relax,” Ike told him. “It’s gonna be a wild ride to the Chattahoochee tonight.”

“We bug out at full dark. Tell Cecil I want his people to pull in closer. And that isn’t a request, that’s an order.”

Ike nodded his head.

Ben continued. “Ill be waiting at the bridge for him. We’ll blow it just as soon as his people are past.”

“It would be an honor if you would allow me to do that, Ben,” West spoke up.

Both Ben and Ike glanced at the mercenary.

“Do I have to ask if you know what you’re letting yourself in for?” Ben questioned.

“I am fully cognizant of the consequences, general.”

“Very well. Get your men in position.”

Ben held out his hand and the mercenary shook it.

“See you all on the fair side of freedom, general,” West said, then turned on his heel and walked away, shouting for his men to join him.

“That’s a strange fellow, Ben,” Ike observed. “Likable ol’ boy; but strange.”

“I had my doubts for awhile, but he’s on the level. He’s with us all the way.”

“But why?” Ike questioned.

“That, old friend, is something we shall probably never know.”

“Something is wrong,” Ashley radioed to Khamsin’s CP.

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s too damn quiet! Ben Raines is up to something. And no, I don’t know what it is. But I’ve known the man for twenty years, and I’m telling you, he’s up to something.”

“The front?”

“That’s just it, Khamsin. My spotters report that nothing is moving. Nothing!”

“No signs of life? Nothing!” Khamsin felt his blood pressure soaring.

“Nothing.”

“Move your spotters in closer. I’ll do the same from the south.”

Khamsin leaned back in his chair and let the forbidden obscenities fly, startling those in the room with him.

Tomorrow is the big day, Emil,” Brother Matthew said. “What have you got up your sleeve?”

Emil glared at him. “I’ll come up with something. Bet on it.”

“I’ve already packed my gear. Just in case.”

“Oh, ye of little faith!” Emil wailed. “I am being deserted in my time of need.”

“Eighteen hours and counting, Emil,” Brother Matthew reminded him.

“I wonder what that fuckin’ Ledbetter is doing?” Emil asked.

“Havin’ a party on the riverbank. All the cute chickies have returned to his camp.”

“I hope he gets eaten by a goddamn alligator!” Emil spat out the words.

“Brother Emil’s gonna come up with something,” one of the faithful announced firmly. “The Great God Blomm will not desert us.”

Emil sighed with great patience, wondering how in the hell he ever got mixed up with all these yo-yos!

Jake had already figured it out. He put it together when one of his rednecks told him, “Sumthang queer goin’ on down there, Jake, and I ain’t talkin’ “bout no

wienie-chewin”, neither.”

“Whut you talkin’ “bout, boy?”

“There ain’t no movement. Some washin” on a line done been blown down more’un a hour, and ain’t nobody snatched it up. That ain’t rat.”

“No movement? None a-tal?”

“Nuttin’.”

Jake stood up. “Git the boys together. And don’t say nuttin’ to nobody “bout it. We gonna cut them fuckers off at the pass. I know whure they’s a-goin”.”

Two hours and counting,” Ben muttered. “If we pull this off it’ll be a miracle.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t discovered us missing hours ago,” Tina said.

Ben put one arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Just between us, kid, so am I.”

Already, long purple shadows were creeping about the city, casting pockets of gloom amid the sunlight. Ben could feel Tina shudder under his hand.

“Damn place spooks me, Dad.”

“Steady, girl. We’ll be home free in a few hours.”

Ben made no mention of Tina’s husband. And she had not brought up his name in a long time. He suspected they had split the sheets. But he had never interfered in her life, and wasn’t about to start now.

Tina abruptly giggled, quite unlike her. “I think Buddy’s getting serious about Judy.”

Good cue, Ben thought. “And, you, girl? How’s your love life?”

She was silent for a moment. “Static. I am totally committed to the Rebel cause. He wanted a stay-at-home person.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“You don’t see me weeping, do you, Dad?”

“I seem to recall that you’re not the hysterical type.”

“I learned that from Salina. Did you love her, Dad?”

“I was … content,” Ben replied.

“There is an old proverb that reads, “A woman should always marry a man she likes, and a man should always marry a women he loves.”

“How interesting.” Ben’s words were dry. “But where is this leading?”

“Just making chit-chat in the middle of ghosties and ghouldies and things that go bump in the night, Pop.”

Ben laughed and shoved her away, slapping her on the butt. “Get outta here!”

“Oh, by the way,” she called over her shoulder. “Colonel West said he’d like to prepare dinner for me some evening … when we’re free.”

“You could do worse,” Ben told her. “And I sure can’t say a damned word about him robbing the cradle, now, can I?”

Tina walked away laughing.

The shadows deepened across the land.

“Come on!” Jake screamed into his radio. “Push it, goddammit. We’ve still got sixty miles to go.”

Khamsin intercepted the message. He was just west of Thomson, in a rage after discovering the Rebel camp was deserted, with straw soldiers and junk vehicles.

He lifted his mike. “Khamsin to base. Order all units to converge on Atlanta. All units push hard. Raines is in Atlanta! Cut them off. Order all units

around the city to seal it off. Now!”

“They know we’re here, general!” came the shout that reached Ben.

Ben ran to his Jeep and turned up the volume on his radio.

“Coming under heavy attack, Ben.” West’s voice was calm.

“Can you hold, colonel?”

“Ten-four, general. But it’s going to take all of us to punch a hole clear through.”

“Ten-four, colonel. On the way.” Ben stood up in the seat and shouted, “Bug out! Bug out! Roll!”

Dropping back in his seat, he got Cecil on the horn. “Pull back, Cec. Block the streets as you go. Use the junked vehicles; they’re all over the place. And fall back to my position. That is not a request, Cec. That is an order. Do you acknowledge?”

“Ten-four, Ben. Bugging out.” Cecil’s voice was calm and professional.

“Buddy! Tina! Link your teams up with Dan. Fall back to the river and beef up Colonel West. Roll, kids!”

He looked at Ike, standing by his side. “Join the others, Ike.”

“Is that an order, Ben?”

“That’s an order, Ike.”

“See you at the river, Ben.”

Ben motioned for Lieutenant Mackey to come to him.

“Sir?”

“You have any doubts at all about your Misfits, lieutenant?”

“Not a one, sir.”

“That’s good. Join up with my people and get ready to bug out.”

“Yes, sir.”

She saluted and ran over to where Billy Bob was waiting with the Misfits. “General Raines just made us a part of his outfit,” she announced. “But before you all start cheering, bear this in mind. General Raines’s troops usually lead the way.”

“I’d damn shore rather lead than follow,” a man spoke from the ranks.

“Everybody’s in,” Ben said, walking up to Cecil and shaking his hand. “You’re the last ones.”

“They’re right behind me, Ben,” Cecil told him. “In the thousands.” He smiled. “With the warlord, Jake, leading the parade.”

“You want him, Cec?”

“That would be nice, I think.”

“This time, kill the son of a bitch.”

Cecil nodded his head and walked back to his Jeep, taking out and holding up a Weatherby 300 mag, with scope. “That answer your statement?”

was ‘Deed it does.” Ben smiled and stuck the needle to his friend. “But you’re getting so damned old you probably won’t be able to hit him.”

Cecil snorted. “I refuse to dignify that remark with a reply. “Hang around, sport.”

“Oh, I shall. And judging from the sounds of all that traffic heading our way, we won’t have a long wait.”

Jake’s column, if it could be called that, came roaring into view, Jake’s vehicle leading the way. The big ‘neck was standing up, hollering and waving to his people.

Cecil waved at Jake.

“There the black son of a bitch is!” Jake hollered. “Git ‘em, boys!”

Cecil lifted the 300 mag and sighted Jake in. He gently squeezed the trigger, allowing the rifle to fire itself. The slug struck Jake in the center of his chest, toppling the man over into the back seat.

Cecil dropped to one knee and sighted in again. This time he took out the driver, the slug punching through the windshield and striking the man in the center of the face. Half the driver’s face was blown away. The vehicle slewed sideways, toppled over, and began howling down the concrete, sparks flying.

The vehicle immediately behind the downed Jeep swerved to avoid it and rolled over, smashing into the sideways-moving Jeep. Both vehicles burst into flames as gasoline ignited. The other cars and trucks behind the flames managed to come to a halt-with about a half a dozen of them crashing into the one in front of them. The entire street was blocked.

“Let’s go!” Ben yelled.

Dark was only minutes away.

Already, hooded shapes were moving, staying close to the darkness that was forming in the city.

Jake’s outfit was now totally disorganized, milling about, not knowing what to do. Jake wasn’t there to tell them.

Shore wasn’t.

Rocks and stones and bottles and pieces of concrete block and bits of iron were being tossed down on the Rebels as they roared through the city. But only a few of the more daring of the Night People were risking the half light of that time between light and dark, and only a few of the thrown objects managed to inflict any damage, most of that dents in

vehicles and not cuts on flesh.

Those Jeeps and APC’S with mounted .50 caliber machine guns soon cleared the rooftops of the Night P.

With Denise driving, Ben sat in the passenger seat, burning powder and tossing lead from his Thompson.

They were only halfway through the city when full dark fell on them.

“I thought darkness creeped.” Denise shouted, fighting the wheel.

“Crept,” Ben automatically corrected, the writer in him surfacing. “Not this time of the year. We’re going to be in for a hell of a time of it, baby!” he yelled.

“Okay, baby!” Denise returned the shout.

Ben laughed aloud and exchanged Thompsons. This one was fitted with a drum instead of a clip. A hooded, robed figure appeared, with a AK in his hands. Ben stitched him, working from ankles to waist, the slugs tossing the man, or woman-Ben wasn’t sure and didn’t particularly give a damn-off the sidewalk and into a store window.

A half a dozen Night People began pushing an old car into the street, attempting to block the Rebels” way. Ben got a firm grip on the Thompson, pulled the trigger back, and held it back.

The powerful old SMG chugged in rapid fire, the .45 caliber slugs howling and splattering and sparking and ricocheting off the street as the SMG worked up, from left to right. The lead cleared the street of Night P.

The Rebels rolled under and over and through loops and expressways and interstates, finally hitting Gordon Road. They were about five miles from the Chattahoochee River bridge.

And Khamsin’s troops of the IPA were just entering downtown Atlanta as full night fell.

Ben began laughing.

Denise looked at him. “What in the hell do you find so funny?”

“Khamsin. The Night People won’t know or care that he’s chasing us. To them, he’ll be just another person to hate. The terrorist is about to get terrorized!” Chapter 9

“Pull back! Pull back I” Khamsin screamed into his mike. “It’s a trap. We don’t know the city and don’t have any idea what’s facing us. Pull back!”

But for several companies of the IPA, it was too late. The Night People, during that time between Ben’s passing and the IPA’S approach, had blocked the streets, trapping those first few pursuing Ben.

The guns of the IPA knocked down the first wave of Night People, then the mass of the robed and hooded swarmed the vehicles.

The soldiers were dragged screaming from their trucks and Jeeps. They were stripped naked in the streets as the blades of sharp knives flashed silver in the glow of headlights, and then dripped with blood as the choice cuts of human flesh were carved away from the living, screaming, terrified, agonized men.

No orders from anyone less than Allah could have forced the remaining IPA into the dark streets of the city, and Khamsin didn’t even try. He ordered his men back, back into the county, away from the city.

“Do we swing around to help the outlaws and our

people west of the city?” Hamid asked Khamsin.

“No,” the terrorist replied. “By that time, it will be all over.”

Knowing that Khamsin would be forced to break off his pursuit, Ben ordered mortars set up and began pounding the positions of the remaining IPA and the outlaws to the north, south, and west of the river.

The ending was rather dull, as Dan put it. The Rebels knocked a hole through the thin lines of outlaws and warlords, and the IPA and rolled west. They were in Alabama several hours later.

Ben halted the column. “Put out guards,” he ordered. “Everybody else get some rest. They won’t be coming after us.”

Two Rebels from Mark and Alvaro’s team walked up to Ben, a prisoner between them.

“General, we got this man yesterday; he got too close to our position. He has something to tell you.”

Ben looked at the prisoner. “What outfit are you from?”

“Ashley. You don’t know who he really is, do you?”

“And you do?”

“Yes, sir. You turn me loose and I’ll tell you.”

Ben was feeling generous that night. “All right. Speak.”

“Would you untie me first?”

Ben signaled for the guard to cut the man free.

Rubbing his wrists, the man said, “You don’t “member me, do you, Raines?”

“No. Should I?”

“I lived not too fur from you, outside of Morriston.”

Ben stared at the man, then shook his head. “I don’t remember you. Sorry.”

“Don’t make no difference. You always was thinkin” yourself better than others. That damn fence around your house and all that.”

Ben sighed. “The term is reserve; not believing I’m better than you. Say what you have to say.”

“Ashley’s his middle name. His first name is Lance and his last name is Lantier.”

Ben chuckled, for a moment lost in memory recall. “Well, I’ll be damned! Fran Lantier Piper’s big brother, Lance. My God. I whipped his ass more than twenty years ago.”

“Yes, sir,” the prisoner said. “And he’s hated you ever since.”

Ben nodded. “All right. You’ll stay here tonight with us. We’ll turn you loose when we pull out in the morning.”

Ben walked away, into the night, wondering how a man could nurture such hate for such a long, long time.

He also had a hunch he’d be seeing more of Lance Ashley Lantier in the very near future.

He was still smiling as he lay down on the blankets and went to sleep.

There hadn’t been much to Lance twenty years ago, and not much to him now.

Except his hatred. Chapter 10

The sounds of bagpipes and tambourines and singing filled the hot air. Cute little white-robed chickies danced ahead of Francis Freneau, sprinkling petals from flowers before him.

Emil stood alone and glared at the big con artist.

Back in Kansas, the hands of the clock and the date on the calendar meshed. The concrete shields rolled back, and the missile fired.

It soared up, turned, and nosed southeast.

Francis moved close to Emil and whispered, “Your scam is all through, little buddy. In five minutes, you won’t have a single follower left.”

“Give it your best shot, Stanley.”

Francis stepped back and sang “Danny Boy,” bringing tears to the eyes of most present. Gave Emil a case of heartburn.

Francis preached a short sermon, proclaiming himself as the new spiritual leader of North Louisiana.

“Blomm is going to give us all a sign, Francis!” Emil shouted. “He’ll … he’ll make the heavens thunder, showing his disapproval. Fire will spring

from the sky!” I hope, Emil thought. Hell, just a little-bitty thunderstorm might do it.

But there was not a cloud in the blue skies.

Francis laughed at him. “Blomm! There is no Blomm. If the heavens thunder and fire springs forth, I will acknowledge that you, Emil Hite, are the spiritual leader of all the earth.”

“And you’ll leave?” Emil asked, stalling for a little more time.

“I shall exit and nevermore return.”

Emil hiked his robes up around his bony knees, took a deep breath, and began speaking in tongues and dancing, his feet kicking up dust. He did the bebop, the rebop, the jitterbug, the twist, and even invented a few steps. Dance Party would have hired him on the spot.

Almost ready to drop from exhaustion, Emil flung his arms wide and shouted, “Blomm! Give me a sign!”

Big Louie’s rocket ran out its string and blew, directly over North Louisiana. The sky erupted in flames and violence. A great ball of fire glowed in the skies.

Francis Freneau yelped once and then gathered his robes up off the ground and, quite ungodlike, hauled his ass out of there. The last anyone saw of Francis was of him loping westward, on Highway

80.

 

“Holy friggin’ shit!” Emil breathed, awestruck. “There really is a Blomm!”

Emil rose to his feet (he had hit the ground in fear when the rocket blew) and glared at the people around him.

“Are there any doubters among you?” he screamed.

The men and women shook their heads and bowed to the Great Emil.

“Pulled it off again,” Brother Matthew whispered. “Okay, Emil. You’re the main man.”

“Bet your ass, I am!” Emil turned, tripped over the hem of his robe, and fell flat on his face in the dust. Chapter 11

“Hell of a bang,” Ike said in his radio message to Ben. “What the hell you reckon that was?”

“I think that was Big Louie’s last surprise, Ike,” Ben radioed. “I’m just glad the damn thing blew a couple of miles up and not on the ground.”

“Where are we headin’, Ben?” Ike asked.

“Back to Louisiana, Ike. Once there, we’ll start gearing up for the building of outposts across the nation.”

“Not far, now, Father,” Buddy radioed. “I have the Mississippi River bridge at Vicksburg in sight.”

“Ten-four, son.” Ben replaced the mike in its hook.

Denise looked at him, noting the expression on his face. “Odd look on your face, Ben.”

“This is where it all began, Denise. I woke up one morning, and the whole world had gone crazy.”

“Are you going to live in your old house? If it’s still standing, that is.”

“No. Too many memories there.”

“The mental faces of old girlfriends?” she teased.

He smiled. “Well, yes. That, too.”

“There will probably be Night People all around us.”

“Yes. We’ll have to deal with them. And Khamsin

isn’t going to forget or forgive. He’ll be along, bet on that.”

“And Ashley.”

“Him, too. And more Jakes and warlords and outlaws. We’ll just take it as it comes.”

The long column rolled westward, through Vicksburg. Buddy was waiting in the center of the big bridge.

“Post guards on the bridge, boy,” Ben told him. “But we’ll deny no person the right to enter our territory to live free.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben looked at the handsome young man for a long moment. Then he smiled. “When you get the guards mounted, you and Judy come on in. I’ll be set up by then. We’ll have supper … my son.”