HegotRebetandDanjouand gave the

orders. “Bug out, gentlemen. And don’t be quiet about it. I’ll see you across.”

Dan had joined him. “Get the kids, Dan.”

“Right, sir.” Dan waved his team to vehicles.

Gene Savie awakened to a cold muzzle pressing against his face.

“I do hate to be so abrupt this early in the morning, don’t you know?” Dan spoke softly.

“It isn’t a bit civil. But we’re going to relieve you all of a burden.”

“What are you talking about?” his wife asked.

“Your children, Madame. I do hope you will not kick up too much of a fuss abot it. I hate unpleasantness before I have had my morning cup.”

“You son of a bitch!” Gene cursed him.

Dan’s smile was thin. “I wouldn’t want you to get in the habit of calling me that. I might take umbrage at the slur against ray mother and become quite hostile. Like bashing your teeth out with the butt of this weapon.”

Gene slumped back onto the pillows.

“Take all the art you can gather, people,” Dan reminded his Scouts. “They won’t be needing it.”

Gene and his wife lay in the dark bedroom and glared at Dan.

A few moments passed in silence.

“We’ve got them, Colonel!” a Scout

called.

“Very good.” He smiled at Gene and wife.

“Ta-ta, now, folks. Do enjoy yourselves … in the time you have left. Oh, and don’t attempt to leave your apartments. I’ll have sharpshooters posted here and there. Good day!” he called cheerfully.

“What’s happening?” his wife cried.

“Ben Raines is leaving us on the island, that’s what is happening. Just relax. We can strike a deal with the Libyan just like we did with the Night P.”

“But the children!”

“Less mouths to feed.”

Dan took the very quiet and scared kids to Striganov.

“What do you plan to do with them once we are clear of the island?” the Russian asked.

“Spread them around our various outposts, I suppose,” Dan told him.

“Do you suppose Ben would object if some of them went to Canada?”

Dan smiled. “I don’t think he would mind at all, General.” He was watching as some of the Russian troops were busy making friends with the children.

“Good, good!” Georgi said, then began assigning personnel to get the kids off the island. They would leave immediately.

Dawn began streaking the eastern sky as Khamsin’s troops began firing at the Rebel-held lines.

“Fall back,” Ben ordered. “Down

to Ninety-sixth Street. Let’s go, people. Fall back as if you “re running in fear from the Hot Fart.”

The Rebels pulled back, giving the Libyan troops twelve more blocks of the city.

“Throw up a line here,” Ben ordered. “We’ve got to hold until noon.”

The Rebels stopped the fast advance of the Libyan troops and held firm. There were few casualties on either side that morning. The snow already on the ground and more coming down made visibility poor and any type of movement very dangerous.

“Get any vehicles that we don’t need out of here,” Ben instructed Dan. “Get them across the bridges. Have the drivers of the vehicles that are staying with us turn them around and keep them ready to go.”

Dan was back at Ben’s side in a moment.

“The bridges wired and ready to blow, Dan?”

“All set, General.”

Ben checked his watch then opened a map case.

“When we bug out, Dan, we’ll take Amsterdam all the way down until it intersects with Broadway. We’ll follow Broadway down to Fourteenth Street and then I’ll angle off to Fourth. We’ll head down to the two lower bridges, then across to Brooklyn. As soon as we’re on the bridges, blow the Williamsburg Bridge.”

“Ten-four, General.”

“All the Tall Eyes down and clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All recon patrols back to our lines?”

“All back home, sir.”

“What am I forgetting, Dan?”

“I can’t think of a thing, sir. I believe we are ready to put the stopper in the bottle.”

“Just a few more hours,” Ben muttered, his voice barely audible over the crash of combat.

“Rebet and Danjou are across,” Chuck relayed the message to Ben.

Emil walked up, looking like the original Sad Sack.

“Did my sweet poopsie arrive in Brooklyn safely?” he asked.

“Yes, Emil,” Ben replied, fighting to hide his smile. “Your rose of no-man’s-land is safe.”

“I feel like the sun has gone forever out of my life,” Emil moaned, looking as if he might tune up and start bawling any second. Or singing, and one was just as bad as the other.

“Hang on, Emil,” Ben told him. “You’ll be together again.” He silently groaned as soon as the words left his mouth, for he knew Emil was old enough to remember that song.

Emil burst out in song.

Dan looked on and listened, his face a study in emotions as Emil bellowed out the words, his voice carrying over the rattle of gunfire.

Ben turned to a Rebel. “Go find Thermopolis.

Tell him to get his people-and Emil and his group-across the river. As quickly as possible.” He grabbed Emil by the shoulders. “Emil! Get ready to head for Brooklyn. Your sweet baboo is waiting.”

“Oh, thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

Emil shouted. He ran off, slipping and sliding in the snow, to join his group.

“Thermopolis is not going to be happy about this,” Dan said.

“Would you like to escort Emil across the bridge?”

“God forbid!”

“Let’s go to work.”

The men and women walked toward the sounds of battle.

Ben was leaning up against a truck when Thermopolis and his group drove past in their VW’S. Emil was sitting in the backseat of Thermopolis’s Bug.

He looked very happy, and he was singing.

Thermopolis looked long at Ben, an

extremely disgusted expression on his face, then raised his hand and gave Ben the finger.

Ben was still laughing and Dan was losing the struggle to maintain a straight face as the short column faded out of sight, the chains on the tires clanking and clicking and rattling as they gripped the snowy street.

“We can’t have any amateurs on this last run, Dan. Get the Underground People out. Tell them to move out now.”

Within minutes, the trucks carrying the strange and pale men and women and children of the underground moved past.

“Gettin” down to the nut-cuttin’ now,” Jersey commented.

Dan glanced at her. “What a quaint

expression. You certainly have a way with words.”

“Thanks,” Jersey said with a straight face.

“Wind is beginning to shift around,” Coop said.

“Another hour or so and it’ll be coming straight out of the east.”

“That’s when we’ll make our move, people. Blazer all packed, Coop?”

“Ten-four, General. Sittin’ on go.”

Ben stuck out his hand and Dan shook it. “Return to your unit, Dan. Get ready to bug out. I’ll advise General Striganov and his people they’ll be leaving within the hour.”

“I shall see you on Broadway, General.

Naturally, you will be leading the parade?”

“Wrong. My team will be the last ones off this island, Dan.”

“I had to try.”

“I was waiting for it.”

“Good luck, sir.”

“Same to you, Dan.”

The Englishman wheeled around and began the short walk back to his unit of Scouts.

Ben stood in the cold winds and blowing snow and rolled a cigarette, his mind racing back and forth like a restless panther in a cage. He began to pace up and down the sidewalk.

Had he remembered everything?

He thought so.

His personal team stood around him in silence, watching him pace the snow.

Ben sighed and stopped his restless walking. He looked at his team. “Take a look around you, gang. Take a look at the Big Apple.

We’re about to tear the core out of it. It’s a good thing Hizzoner isn’t around to see this.”

“Who, sir?” Coop asked.

“The mayor. He would have been very unhappy with me.”

Ben lifted the map and for the tenth time in an hour studied the route to freedom. “Miles to go,” he muttered. “And we’re leaving so many treasures behind us.”

“Sir,” Jersey said. “We got a hundred tons

of books and paintings and stuff being loaded over in Brooklyn. More than I ever dreamed we’d manage to salvage. If history hangs a lot of blame on you, then the historians can just go kiss ass!”

Ben was startled for a moment; then he burst out laughing.

“You’re right, Jersey. Thanks for taking a load off me.”

“You’re welcome,” the little lady said.

“Let’s go cross some bridges, gang. Chuck, tell General Striganov to bug out!”

As soon as Khamsin’s troops realized what was happening, they radioed the news back to his CP.

“Pursue them!” Khamsin screamed. “Don’t let them reach the bridges. Cut them off.”

Easy to say. But Ben had prepared for that move, as well.

What Khamsin did not know, but was about to discover, was that East 65 this Street, from the park all the way over to the East River, was blocked by as many junked vehicles as the Rebels had been able to drag in from all over that part of the city.

Khamsin split his forces, one group pushing down from the recently abandoned battle lines on the east side of the park, the other group chasing after Ben on the west side of the park.

Some of Gene Savie’s group, seeing what was taking place, ran out of their apartments and tried to wave down the troops of the Hot Wind.

“We’re friends!” they screamed at the trucks.

“We’re on your side. We’re glad to see you.”

“Please stop!” Gene shouted. “Please.

We’re your friends.”

The Libyans laughed at them.

“Leave them be,” a field commander ordered. “When we get back we’ll shoot the men and have our way with the women.”

The race went on through the slick snowy streets of the city.

In the Blazer, Ben took a page from Emil’s book and began humming “Homeward Bound.”

With chains on all four wheels, Cooper could maneuver the four-wheel-drive vehicle almost as well as if he were driving on dry pavement.

Since they were the last vehicle in the column, Ben decided to have some fun by tossing grenades out of his open window.

That action kept Khamsin’s men back a good two blocks, for the Rebel grenades were almost twice as powerful as the old conventional type.

Ben picked up his mike and keyed it. “Dan? When we reach Columbus Circle, spread a couple hundred pounds of HE around the area and put a two-minute timer on it. That ought to catch Khamsin’s column just right. Keep the east lane, east side clear.”

“Ten-four, sir.”

Cooper glanced at a battered old sign. West 72nd Street. It was going to be close. He picked up his mike. “You guys up front wanna kick it in the ass some? I sure would appreciate it.”

The column picked up speed.

“What’s the matter, Coop?” Ben said with a smile. “You getting nervous?”

“Oh, no! Not me, sir.”

“He doesn’t lie any better than he

drives,” Jersey remarked.

Coop slid through Columbus Circle, his face shiny with sweat. “Shit!” he yelled, relief very evident in his voice as they cleared the hidden explosives.

The high explosives blew just as the third truck in Khamsin’s column passed over it. The truck and its occupants were splattered all over the area.

The huge explosion blew the gas tanks on several more trucks and created a massive, burning traffic jam. The twisted and mangled and bloody bodies of the Hot Wind’s soldiers littered the snow.

The Rebel column sped past 57th Street and continued south, toward Times Square.

“We’re blocked!” Akim screamed into his mike. “Completely blocked at Sixty-fifth Street.”

“Backtrack!” Khamsin squalled into his mike. “Backtrack and cut over through the park.”

He was frantically eyeing an old city map. “Just past the zoo there is a road that cuts south, it will bring you out on Central Park South. Move, Akim, move!”

“Times Square.” Ben pointed it out, much like a tour director. “I almost got mugged in this area one night.”

They passed the Times Building.

“Macy’s is just a few blocks down, ladies.

I wish we had the time to stop and browse, but I’m afraid our schedule just won’t permit it.

Pressing business and all that, you know?”

“Comedian,” Jersey muttered. “A

grenade-tossing comedian.”

“Yeah, you could say he bombed out,” Beth said.

Ben groaned as the others laughed.

They were through Herald Square and then passing the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street.

Ben keyed his mike. “Dan, everything is still G.

You cross on the Brooklyn Bridge.

I’ll take the Manhattan Bridge.”

“Ten-four, General.”

“Lead Scout,” Ben radioed, “when you get down here to Union Square Park, just past it, hanga leftand you’ll pick up Fourth Avenue, turn right on Fourth. That changes to Bowery later on. Stay with it. We might even see a bum or two.”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. We’ll pick up the bridge just off Confucius Plaza.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where the hell did our pursuit go?” Beth asked, twisting around in the backseat.

“They probably got all tangled up,” Ben said with a smile as the others groaned.

Coop followed the column as they turned onto Fourth.

“Cooper Square right down there a few blocks,”