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Now, unless you want to see one pissed-off, crazy female, you'd better get us to him, pronto!"

The medic blanched. "OK . . . OK." He turned to the helicopter pilot and said, "Let's go, Sarge. We need to get this man to General Raines's camp as soon as we can."

"Sooner," Jersey said, patting her pistol, "sooner, if you know what's good for you."

As the medics loaded Cooper's stretcher onto the chopper, Jersey grabbed one of the Scouts by the arm.

"Hey soldier, you got any chocolate in your duffel bag?"

Cooper raised his head and said, "Better give it to her, son. She gets downright nasty when she hasn't had her chocolate."

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Moving carefully along the Atlantic coast jungles in western Namibia, Major Jerry Enger checked his maps and aerial recon photographs with Tomo, his best Zulu tribesman and scout, looking over his shoulder.

Like its geographical counterpart in North America, the African southwest is desert country, with Namibia taking its name from the Namib, the great swathe of desert that stretches the length of its eight-hundred-mile-long Skeleton Coast. This Namib desert is one of the driest places on earth.

Scattered mountain ranges run north to south, and punctuate the landscapes of the central plateau and southern steppes. Only along the rivers on the northern border with Angola does the jungle grow lush and thick, fed by the waters of the Kunene River on the Angolan border.

In the northeastern corner of the country, in the Caprivi Strip, there is thick jungle, courtesy of the Okavango, Zambezi, and Kwando Rivers that flow from the north.

It was here in this hot, humid, sweltering jungle brush that Enger and his men searched for Raines and his elusive 501 Brigade, just north of the Namibian city of Ohopoho.

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In the heat of the jungle, the men in Enger's Dark Horse Brigade were sweating profusely. Enger had reliable information from Bottger's Intelligence agents that the dreaded 501 Brigade led by General Ben Raines was to the northwest of him in southern Angola, moving steadily south toward the New World headquarters in Pretoria.

Someone had to stop them. Enger saw it as his chance for his finest hour as a mercenary for The New World Order-to halt the Rebels and defeat them soundly. He had little faith in the stories the natives had told of what fierce warriors Raines and his men were, putting them down as excuses by the natives for their lack of success against the 501 Brigade, and nothing more.

"We move northwest right here," he told Tomo, his chief Zulu leader of mercenaries from Zanzibar, pointing to a river shown on the map running west toward Angola.

"Send several dozen of your best men to scout the way. Have them fan out on both sides of this river."

Tomo spoke English with a British accent. He was huge, very muscular, so dark that his skin looked like black satin while he was sweating. He was a weapons expert, if any Zulu could be called an expert with modern weaponry. He understood the Soviet-made portable rocket launchers, and trained his most trusted men how to use them accurately. And Tomo was a fierce fighter with an AK47 or in hand-to-hand combat. He could be counted on to take a deadly toll in any type of confrontation with soldiers from the Rebel armies.

His warriors, of the Herero tribes, were traditional allies of the Germans and had been since the 1800's when the German farmers first colonized Namibia.

"River be best way," Tomo said. "It flow north, toward

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Angolan border. We go slow. Maybe no cross over into Angola if we no find Ben Raines in Namibia."

"Why is that?" Enger asked, for Tomo seemed worried about something in Angola.

"Many die there, get sick in Angola. Bleed from mouth and nose and ears. Die in three or four days. Thousands are dead, rotting in the jungles and villages. "

"The damn Rebels have let loose some kind of germ agent we don't know about?"

"No, Major. It be anthrax. General Field Marshal Bottger order it be dropped from airplanes. Kill all jungle animals, all lions and elephants, all Bantu tribes living in small villages in Angola. My scouts say bodies be everywhere. Nobody alive in Angola but birds and lizards, they say."

"We've been inoculated against our own anthrax bombs and rockets. It won't bother us."

"I don't know what this mean . . . inoculated. But all are dead in Angola. Maybe Raines and his men dead, too. I no think my men will go into Angola."

"We're immune to it. The shots they gave us in the butt in the last six months keeps us from contracting anthrax. I heard this from General Ligon himself, so stop worrying."

Tomo wagged his head, uncertain. "A Zulu no understand this thing, the needles, how so many people die from anthrax and we do not die because of the needles. Missionaries say same thing about the Slims disease, what you white men call AIDS, but many still die in spite of needles. My men are frightened. They say they no go across into the Angola where everyone die."

Enger was frustrated over the Zulu's ignorance of medicine and germ warfare. Trained by the old East

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German army specialists in these matters, he had no patience with ignorant savages who were incapable of understanding things even when they were properly explained.

"Promise your men the shots. The needles make it safe. They will not get sick."

"They still be afraid," Tomo said. "Some refuse to take the needles. They say it be a bad thing. Some say needles cause Slims disease, maybe also cause anthrax." The big man shrugged, as if to say such things were beyond him.

Enger couldn't have cared less if they lost a few Zulus to anthrax. He held his tongue. Tomo and a few more had agreed to the vaccinations, and his European mercenaries were all inoculated against the anthrax spores. Tomo's scouts had to find Raines so his location could be pinpointed for aerial strikes. He could not allow them to refuse his orders.

"Spread them out on both sides of the river until we get to the border into Angola. Maybe Raines and his 501 Brigade have already crossed over into Namibia, if the anthrax didn't get them. We'll find him, and call in air support and some armor when we do."

Enger wanted to sound very sure of their success, to help convince Tomo and the others to follow orders.

Tomo turned away from the map, swatting mosquitos away from his fierce looking black face. "I tell my scouts what you say, Major. We go as far as border, but not cross into Angola."

Enger watched the giant Zulu walk soundlessly into the tropical forest, gathering his scouts in a small clearing where vines dangled from towering limbs surrounding an open space near the shallow river. The river would be infested with crocs and poisonous snakes. He

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thought it was best to let men who knew the jungles go ahead of his Special Forces column.

With over two dozen Russian-made Spider Rocket launchers in the hands of the best trained men in Dark Horse Brigade, Enger felt confident they could handle any sort of engagement with Ben Raines and his Rebel soldiers, even if it came down to close-quarters fighting.

Enger prided himself on the combat training he'd given his men. Most were armed with razor-sharp bayonets or machetes, sawed-off automatic shotguns, and .45 caliber pistols and grenades. His demolition squad had Trictoff Soviet land mines to lay in Ben Raines's path if they found his armored machinery moving toward South Africa and New World headquarters.

And with a heavy rain forest canopy to hide them, Enger and his Dark Horse soldiers would be hidden from detection from the skies. He had ordered all his tanks, cannons, and motorized equipment to hold their positions along the coast to wait for coded instructions I sent by radio.

Tomo led more tfian a dozen Zulu soldiers across a I shallow spot in die river, the water only reaching their waists. A huge croc slithered off one muddy embankment, and in the same instant Tomo shot it in the head | witih a single round from his Steyer automatic pistol.

The fifteen-foot croc began twisting, rolling over in I the water thrashing its tail, leaving a trail of dark blood in the brown waters flowing toward the Adantic. These saltwater crocs were the most aggressive of dieir species and it had happened more than once that a croc hidden below the surface of some river had lunged out to grab a man and pull him under to his death.

Enger turned to Captain Walter Zahn, an East German, his second in command of the brigade.

"Let's move out," Enger said.

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Columns of men in camouflage uniforms began walking into the dark shadows beneath the forest canopy, AK47s cocked and ready.

Enger hoped they would find Raines and his 501 Brigade this side of the Angola border, so there wouldn't be any problem with Tomo's natives. He hoped Ligon was wrong, and the anthrax wouldn't kill Raines and his troops. He wanted that pleasure, and the glory that would follow, to be all his.

Enger was weary after days of slow progress through jungles along the river. Tomo had nothing to report, only empty forest and hundreds of crocs sunning on the riverbank. As the sun set on their third day marching toward the border of Angola, while he was becoming more convinced than ever they would never find the Rebels, the staccato distant machine gun fire startled him into a battle-ready state.

"Fan out!" he cried, waving his arm to direct his men into the jungle. Enger knew the sound of the American weapons all too well. Tomo, or one of his scouts, had stumbled into an ambush somewhere upriver.

Now machine guns began to blast from all directions, accompanied by the occasional explosion of a grenade, their noise filling the rain forest like peals of thunder. Men were screaming in pain and yelling in fear when the thump of a mortar being fired suddenly echoed from a bend in the river, followed by a terrific blast.

A New World soldier ran into the river shallows, spraying machine gun fire back and forth to the west. He fired until his clip was empty, unaware that a giant croc was swimming toward his splashing sounds, undulating like a snake in the water, using its tail to push it forward.

Another mortar round boomed in the jungle, fired

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at Enger's troops from some position he couldn't see. He did see the croc leap out of the water to grab his soldier by the leg, jerking him off his feet until he sank out of sight where he'd been standing, below white foam and bubbles.

One of Tomo's Zulus staggered out of the forest with blood pouring from his belly. Half of his face was missing, so that when he turned his head one side of a grinning bloody skull was showing. The Zulu fell to his knees, shrieking in agony as blood pooled around him.

Another of Tomo's scouts came back downriver in a limping run with a bloodstain darkening the leg of his fatigues. He ran a few steps more and toppled over in jungle undergrowth, but now the sounds of battle raged up and down the river, and one man's cry was lost in the thunder of guns, mortars, and exploding grenades.

Enger turned to his radio engineer. "Call for air sup port. Give them our coordinates. And tell the bastards to get it here fast."

"Yes, sir," stammered a Belgian mercenary named Klaus, taking his radio out to begin transmission to Pretoria, where most of the HIND M24 helicopter gunships were stationed in the south. They would then check their maps to find the nearest M24s to Enger's position and relay the coordinates.

Enger prayed they weren't too far off, for they were in a desperate situation here. Only a chopper could maneuver along this twisting river to get any firepower directed at the enemy positions.

"Black Horse Brigade calling HQ. Send in the HINDs at-" His coordinates were drowned out by a mortar blast ripping trees and vines apart in front of Enger.

A rocket hissed from far upriver, following the river's course from a hand-held launcher. The Rebels' Dragon rockets were unusually accurate for short distances.

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However, they needed heat to sense a target, and Enger wondered why the rocket had been fired when they had no tanks or aircraft to attract them to a hit.

Very quickly he saw the Dragon explode at a site where his men set up a mortar. The concussion of such a powerful explosion shook leaves and vines above Enger's head.

"Make sure they understand we're under fire!" Enger shouted to Klaus. "Tell them to get their asses in the air right now or we'll be shot all to hell. And warn them these Rebels have rockets!"

Another thudding blast made the ground under Enger's boots tremble. Upriver, men screamed at a spot where trees were blown out of the ground by the roots.

"Damn," he whispered. Tomo was one of the best African scouts in The New World Army and he'd been fooled, tricked into an ambush.

Machine gun and small automatic weapons fire crackled all over the jungle, from all directions, nonstop. With his forces surrounded, Enger knew they had encountered a very large Rebel force, and he was puzzled how Tomo had missed some indication that they were there, setting a trap for them.

A grenade launcher sent a ball of fiery death into a squad of Enger's riflemen, blowing them out of their hiding places. Bits and pieces of bodies, uniforms, weapons, boots, and caps came flying into the air.

"How the hell?" Enger asked himself, listening to Klaus radio instructions to someone at Pretoria. The gunships would arrive too late.

A wall of muzzle flashes lit up the forests on both sides of the river as the Rebels advanced toward Enger and his troops. It seemed nothing could stop so many guns Firing in unison.

"Pull back!" he cried when it was clear he and his

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brigade could not hold their position without taking huge numbers of casualties.

A Zulu tribesman ran headlong into the forest, retreating as fast as his legs could carry him until a bullet struck him in the back. The front of his camouflage shirt disintegrated in a splash of blood and tissue and fabric when the high velocity slug passed through him.

"Ayiii!" he cried as blood bubbled from his throat after the bullet ripped open his lung. The Zulu fell in mid-stride, disappearing into the undergrowth.

Enger wheeled around, for now bullets were whizzing past his head, shredding palm leaves, striking the bark on rubber trees with a resounding crack.

Major Jerry Enger took off, running for his life, leaving his men to fend for themselves, ignoring the cries and pleas for help coming from his embattled soldiers.

Apparently, quite by accident and without Tomo being aware of it until it was too late, they had run headlong into the Rebel 501 Brigade and General Ben Raines.

Gone from Enger's mind were all thoughts of glory and victory . . . now all he was concerned with was survival, getting away from Raines and his men, who did indeed fight like the devils the natives said they were.

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Captain Boris Dahn flew the coordinates relayed by radio from Pretoria, checking his instruments. Luckily, his squadron of HIND helicopters had been bivouacked in the Namibian city of Ohopoho, and didn't have far to fly.

His radar showed nothing and yet he was close to the reported site of the Rebel attack in the jungle areas along the Kunene River. The throb of the twin turbines on his HIND M24 forcing the blades through the air filled his ears. His heat sensors showed nothing other than scattered jungle wildlife. It was as if the battle had never taken place.

"Red Leader One. Nothing on my screen."

Boris led a squadron of five, Russian-built helicopter gunships. His pilots were experienced, seasoned veterans of close jungle air wars, and they understood conditions in Africa and the terrain. Equipped with HUDs-Heads Up Displays-for targeting an enemy, the M24s were good airships capable of quick maneuvers and heavy firepower.

They had twin mounted machine guns and dual forty millimeter cannons, but their real power came from side-mount, heat-seeking rocket launchers capable of destroying even a heavily armored Abrams tank.

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"Red Leader," a voice crackled back over his headset. "No sign of anything, and I am already at the river."

Eric Strauss was a top gunship pilot, Dahn's best helicopter marksman, the most experienced flyer in the squadron.

"Check back with air control in Pretoria about those coordinates. I may be mistaken, or my readings may be off. I can see the river and no sign of anything."

"I don't see a damn thing, either. I'll change frequencies and verify."

Boris trusted his instruments. The HIND choppers were as good as any modified Apache gunship. An M24 was reliable as hell, instrument accuracy beyond anything the Soviets had ever built. But when they had parts failures it was virtually impossible to repair them . . . General Bottger was having more and more trouble securing parts.

"Red Leader One. This is Red Five. I see smoke. Look to the west, where the river turns."

Boris did see smoke curling from a part of the rain forest north of the river.

"That's it. Zero in. Watch for anti-aircraft fire. I've got nothing on my screens." He reset his HUD and touched the zoom button.

He was concerned about his ships being easy targets for the hand-held rockets Enger had reported the Rebels had. Boris's ships were painted in brown and sand earth-tone colors, perfect camouflage for the desert and savanna terrain that made up ninety percent of Namibia. Who would have thought they'd be called to provide air support over the only small jungle area in the whole damned country?

The thump of rotors changed when Boris swung toward the smoke. Something was wrong. No Rebel brigade would push through this jungle without air

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support. His intuition was quivering, telling him to beware, so he kept an eye on his radar screen, looking for dark blips representing airborne Apaches or fighter planes.

"I've still got nothing," he said, pressing the radio transmit control button with his thumb while keeping the stick and throttles in proper position.

"My screen is blank," Red Five reported.

"Nothing here, either," Red Two radioed. "Not so much as a blip on any of my displays. Maybe we got here too late. It may be over for Dark Horse."

"There has to be something, "Boris assured the others. "I can't believe we don't see any air traffic."

"They may be down low. They can do that, so the trees block them from our radar."

Boris knew all too well how low an Apache gunship could hover and not show up on a radar screen. In numerous battles in the skies he'd seen them appear as if out of nowhere. Apaches had a smaller rotor span, allowing them to hide in tiny open spots in the jungles.

"Keep on looking," he said, growing nervous.

A Rebel force wouldn't be moving toward Pretoria without air support of some kind, unless this was a small, recon group scouting the way for an armored battalion. The lack of air support made him wonder. Dark Horse had radioed they were under heavy attack. So where the hell was the Rebel army?

"Red One!" a voice cried, Eric's voice. "I've got a hot spot on my scope. They've got something with infrared trained on us ... targeting me!"

"Drop down!" Boris said.

The vapor trail of a GTA missile left a thick sector of the forest canopy. "Watch out! Avoid! Make a ninety west turn!"

The ground-to-air rocket struck Eric Strauss's HIND

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and the aircraft exploded, an expanding fireball ripping the helicopter gunship apart at less than a thousand feet of altitude, showering the forest below with burning fuel and shredded metal.

Boris trained his ATG rocket launcher at the spot where he saw the missile rush from the trees. He set the parameters and centered the markers on his HUD before he squeezed his stick-mounted trigger.

The whoosh of a mounted rocket was followed by its vapor trail away from the M24, causing his craft to swing to the left slightly as a right-side launcher fired. His gaze remained fixed on the HUD screen projected before him on his windshield, awaiting a hit.

An explosion and fire near the river announced the arrival of the rocket. Trees burst into flame as they disintegrated like kindling wood, and the distant roar of the concussion was loud enough to be heard even above the rotor's noise.

"A miss, Red Leader One," someone said into the radio from another HIND. "They had a heat shield in place. We hit a damn piece of sheet metal with an infrared homing device planted on it. We were tricked. The rocket was fired by remote control. There is no one down there. Repeat, we blew up an unmanned launcher."

When an explosion of rocket fuel or any other ammunition did not follow the hit, it was painfully obvious the New World airmen had been fooled. A smoldering crater in the jungle floor was all he had to show for firing a valuable rocket.

"Damn it all," Boris hissed. "They have tricked our best deep sensors again. The Russians insisted the modifications would work."

He watched what was left of Eric Strauss's gunship go

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down, twisting like a wounded duck, a flaming, wounded duck crashing into the rain forest below.

"There is nobody down there, Red Leader One. They set this whole thing up to draw us in, a fire burning in the jungle and an infrared beam coming from a worthless piece of tin and a remote rocket launcher."

It was information Boris didn't need to be reminded of, for he had quickly come to the same conclusion himself.

He gave the air around them a quick visual inspection. When the Rebels gave them something like this to shoot at, it was most often a trap of some kind.

"Poor Eric," another voice crackled over the radio. "He will be missed. He had more air kills than any of us in the squadron. He was my instructor."

Boris ignored the expression of sorrow by one of Eric's fellow pilots, sensing that even now some sort of ground missile might be trained on his squadron. Yet his instruments gave him nothing. There was absolutely no indication that he or his men were being targeted by any radar-controlled missiles. Where can the bastards be? he thought, twisting his head from side to side, hoping to see something his sophisticated Russian instruments had missed.

"Red One! Red One! I've got a blip behind us!" It was Hans Rutger's voice from Red Four guarding their rear.

That was one of the M24's faults-their radar sensors could not cover a blind spot directly behind the aircraft. Boris swung his chopper around in a sweeping, diving turn, dropping lower out of the flight pattern to avoid a collision with one of his own aircraft.

And suddenly there it was, a flashing marker on his HUD, followed by a warning chirp that his M24 was being targeted by some infrared device.

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"Down! Down!' he cried into his headset. "They have a marker on me!"

He changed pitch suddenly on his rotor blades and dropped like a stone to less than a hundred feet above the treetops, his prop wash causing the jungle below him to swirl madly, driving monkeys and birds into flight in every direction.

"Red One!" Hans cried into his helmet earphones. "I have a GTA locked on me. . . ."

Hans's voice broke off the instant a resounding boom thundered above Boris's M24. He looked up when the aftershock of a direct hit made his chopper sway, forcing him to use more thrust to hold his position above the trees, for his ship was hovering dangerously close to the highest limbs.

Hans Rutger's HIND was engulfed by fire. The tail section and rear rotor snapped off, looping away from the body of the flaming craft as though it had a flight path of its own, dropping toward the jungle in perfect arcs driven by the tail rotor.

Boris caught a brief glimpse of Hans-his helmeted body swaddled in a blanket of flame flying upward, turning head over heels while still belted into the pilot's seat, his arms flailing helplessly until he was cut in half by a spinning blade on the main rotor separated from the shaft by the explosion.

Then all was fire and noise where Hans Rutger's chopper had been only seconds earlier. Flaming wreckage fell across the rain forest, narrowly missing Boris's rotors and almost taking his chopper down with it as it fell.

Another blip showed on Boris' HUD, and his warning system chirped faster, louder, screaming a warning to the frightened pilot.

One of the Rebels was trying to train a rocket on

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him, even at an altitude that should have hidden him from a laser beam.

"Got a hot spot!" Boris shouted. "I have no choice but to put down now!"

He fully understood the consequences. Crashing in die jungle treetops at least offered a slight chance he might survive.

"Red One! I have a hot spot!" The voice belonged to the pilot of Red Three.

"Go down! Go down!" Boris bellowed into the microphone as he cut the throttle on his own chopper, hoping it would drift slowly into the treetops and catch somewhere among the tree limbs without exploding.

He saw a fireball erupt off to his left while he was going down. Red Three came apart like a child's toy, and the clap of the explosion was accompanied by a scream transmitted over the radio. Then the scream ended abruptly as die helicopter's fuel tanks exploded into a secondary fireball.

Boris felt his M24 strike an object below. Then the machine tilted crazily and main rotor blades began to chew into leafy limbs and jungle vines, shaking the cockpit as though he were in an earthquake. The tail section twisted upward, and then the cockpit glass shattered. The noise around him was deafening.

He had the presence of mind to reach for the control panel to shut off the electrical system, hoping to prevent a fire, just as the HIND made a nosedive among the branches toward the jungle floor. For some reason one of his machine guns began to fire, out of control, blasting the ground rushing toward him with a spray of armor-piercing bullets.

"Dear God," he gasped, watching in horror what awaited him upon impact while the last remaining

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blade of the main rotor chewed through everything in its path.

Just before the nose of his ruined HIND slammed to the ground, something caught, jerking him forward against the restraint of his seat harness, suspending him and what was left of his chopper a few feet off the ground.

Something in his neck had snapped. His head lolled over until his chin touched his chest. Then, wondering if he might be dying, he lost consciousness.

Boris blinked his eyes open. Excruciating pain throbbed in his neck and head and down his back. Someone, some voice, was talking to him. Was this a dream? Was he still alive? How long had he been unconscious?

He found himself hanging from the pilot's seat, trapped in the safety harness, staring down, unable to turn his head or lift it. He saw the shape of a man wearing fatigues, holding some kind of rifle with the muzzle pointed up at him.

The soldier spoke to him in English. "Looks like your bird broke its wings, Nazi."

"Help me," Boris stammered.

"I'm gonna help you, asshole. I'm gonna help you all the way to your grave."

"Who are you? Are you one of Enger's troops? Why are you aiming that gun at me?"

"My name's Ben Raines. I'm sure as hell not one of you. I'm aiming this rifle at you because I'm gonna send you to hell with it, where you belong."

The name Ben Raines was vaguely familiar, although Boris was too badly stunned by the crash to think clearly.

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The pain in his neck and back was excruciating, making his vision blur and consuming his thoughts.

"Adios, asshole," Raines said.

Boris Dahn heard the hammering of gunfire, and felt his body being jerked back and forth in his flight harness. Then all went black around him and, mercifully, the pain disappeared and he felt nothing.

189 Twenty

When Jersey and Cooper, his arm in a sling, entered Ben's CP tent, their team members gathered around, slapping Cooper on the back and hugging Jersey.

Anna said with tears in her eyes, "We're so glad to have you two back. We never gave up hope you would make it."

"We might not have, if Ben hadn't left that medical team with the chopper at Soyo," Jersey said.

She glanced at Cooper. "Coop was in pretty bad shape by the time we got down the Congo."

"Yeah, if it hadn't been for the way Jersey took care of me, I would have been a goner for sure," Cooper added.

A voice from the tent's doorway boomed out, "Speaking of wounds, I want to see you in my hospital tent right away, young man."

Doctor Chase was standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, a grin on his face. "And as for you, young lady," he said, pointing a finger at Jersey, "one of my medics says you threatened him with a gun."

Ben looked at her, his eyebrows raised. "Is that true, Jersey?"

"No, of course not . . . I just told him I might be a little perturbed if he started cutting on Coop's arm before Doc Chase had a chance to look at it."

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"That's not the way he tells it," Doctor Chase said, winking at Ben. "Now come on, Coop, let's go take a look at that arm before it falls off."

As he walked toward the door he called back to Jersey. "And you-in my tent later for a full physical. No telling what you might have picked up running around in the jungle like that."

After Doctor Chase and Cooper left, Ben poured Jersey some coffee, "Tell us about what happened. Did you see any more hostiles?"

Jersey nodded. "Sure, Boss, but could it wait just a little while? We haven't had anything to eat but rice and rotten fruit for three days."

Beth and Anna both rushed to her side. "Come on, we'll take you to the mess tent."

Ben held up his hand. "Corrie, stay a few minutes. I need you here. I want to bump Cecil Jefferys in the states."

"Sure thing, Boss."

After the others had left, Corrie got on the radio. It took her twenty minutes to establish a connection with Jefferys's office, then another ten minutes while they transferred her back and forth to his new CP.

An impatient Ben Raines asked, "What's taking so long, Corrie? Trouble with the equipment?"

"No, sir. It seems there was an attempt on Jefferys's life."

"What?"

"Yes, sir. He's in a hospital facility. They wouldn't tell me where, 'cause security's still pretty tight and they didn't want to transmit his location over an open line."

"Damn! Things are heating up in the states faster than I anticipated."

Ben shook his head, pacing around his CP tent, thinking out loud. "Corrie, we're gonna have to finish up

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here as quick as we can. I'm afraid if we don't get back to the States soon to give SUSA some support, the NUS and EUS are going to join forces and attack Cecil. I don't know if he has the wherewithal to survive a combined assault without our forces backing him."

Just then, the radio buzzed. After talking for a few minutes, Corrie handed the transceiver to Ben.

"Cecil Jefferys is on line, Boss."

"Cece," Ben said, "how are you, and what's going on over there?"

"I'm fine, Ben, thanks. I was very lucky. One of my bodyguards took a bullet that was meant for me. I just got a nick in the arm."

"So, do you know who's behind the assassination attempt?"

"Yes. We captured one of the team of assassins. Before he managed to kill himself, he talked. You were right, Ben. The NUS and EUS have officially joined together, under one leader, and they're going to call themselves The NEUS."

"Any idea who came out on top?"

"No, we were just getting to that when he killed himself with a cyanide pill hidden in a molar."

"So, they must not believe us when we say we will not be conquered without bringing complete devastation to the States."

"You know how the old liberal establishment thinks as well as I do, Ben. They simply cannot believe anyone in his right mind wouldn't want to be under their socialistic leadership. They evidently think all the people living in The SUSA actually want their government protection and handouts."

Ben nodded, even though Jefferys couldn't see him. "Yeah, I discussed that with some reporters from there not too long ago. They're unable to comprehend why

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anyone would risk his life to remain free of governmental intrusion. Hell, they're still convinced that most people abhor violence and private ownership of guns, so the thought that our citizens live with us of their own free will is anathema to them."

"Ben, how long until you're done over there?"

"No more than a couple of weeks, I'd guess. All of my brigades are moving south, facing very little organized resistance so far."

Ben grunted. "Of course, that's soon going to change as we get closer to Bottger's headquarters. I have a feeling he has pulled all of his New World Order troops back to provide a final front to protect him and his other leaders somewhere in South Africa."

"In that regard, my Intelligence sources here have been tracking quite a few long range transmissions between the headquarters of the EUS and NUS and Pretoria, South Africa."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. If I had to make a guess, I'd give you two to one odds Bottger has his headquarters either in or near the city of Pretoria."

"Thanks for the info, Cece. I'll radio my brigade commanders and tell them to start tracking their forces toward Pretoria. That should give us some quick response, increased opposition from more professional troops, if Bottger is headquartered there."

"OK, Ben. I have to go now. The security types have decided it's time to move me again, to someplace more secure. They feel another assassination attempt is on the way."

"You take care, Cece. SUSA needs your leadership now more than ever. Raines out."

"Thanks, Ben. You, too. If they're trying to kill me,

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it's only logical to assume you're high on their hit list, also. Watch your back, old friend. Jefferys out."

"Corrie," Ben said as he handed her the radio transceiver, "see if you can get John Michaels in here. We need to discuss a strategy for ending this African campaign as soon as possible."

Five minutes later Michaels walked through the door, followed by Cooper, Jersey, Beth, and Anna.

"I see you must have eaten your fill," Ben said with a smile to Jersey and Cooper.

"Fruit and rice, especially rotten fruit, is highly overrated as an energy source," Cooper said with a scowl.

He glanced at Jersey. "Not to say that Jersey isn't a wonderful cook, who'll no doubt make some man a wonderful wife some day, but I hate sharing my portions with maggots and worms."

Jersey gave him a look. "Well, after nursing a layabout, lazy man who pretended his wounds were worse than they really were, hunting and gathering all our food by myself, and defending said lazy brute from the forces of evil all day, I feel I can be excused for not coming up to his culinary expectations."

Cooper gave her a bow. "bu're excused, and your nursing skills and self-defense skills are above reproach. In fact, I highly recommend to all and sundry that if they ever get stranded and wounded in the jungle they have you as a companion, my dear."

"OK, team. Let's get down to business for a while," Ben said. "Cecil Jefferys tells me the EUS and NUS have joined forces, and he fears an attack before too long and perhaps even a coup in the US. That means we have to get this unpleasantness in Africa over with as soon as possible."

Michaels nodded. "Things are going well with the other brigades, Ben. From the east coast over in Mozam-

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bique to the central areas of Zimbabwe and Botswana, all our forces are moving very rapidly to the south. They all report resistance has been minimal at best, except for Colonel Marsh, who for some reason has come under fairly severe attacks recently."

Ben grinned. "Couldn't happen to a more competent commander. If I know Marsh, he kicked some butt."

"Yes. He's suffered only minimal troop losses, but his losses of materiel have been slightly higher than the other commander's."

Ben got up from his desk and walked to a bulletin board where he had tacked up a map of Africa. He put his finger on the area surrounding Pretoria.

"I have fairly reliable information from Cecil's Intelligence sources that Bottger is most likely headquartered in Pretoria, or somewhere close to it."

He turned from the map to face Michaels. "I want the rest of the battalions to turn and concentrate their movements to heading for Pretoria."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Ike's 502 Brigade is just a few hundred klicks behind us, running down the Angola-Zambia border. He's not facing much resistance. It seems the native warriors who usually fight for Bottger are afraid to travel too close to Angola, because of the anthrax deaths there."

Ben nodded. "Good. How about the others?"

"Thermopolis's 19 Batt is still tracking south through the middle of the country, toward the middle to eastern Zimbabwe."

"How about Pat O'Shea and the 510?"

"They started on the coast and have come straight south, from Somalia, through Kenya, and are now about halfway down Mozambique. He states he's had relatively little opposition, other than native gangs and a few small bands of meres."

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Ben studied the map for a moment. "John, I want everyone to curve their brigades to make a path straight for Pretoria. Ignore anything else. If Bottger's there we'll cut the head of the snake off, and the body will die."

He glanced at his team members, sitting around watching him. "That was one of the weaknesses of the old Nazi regime, and has no doubt been copied by Bottger. The leaders were all too paranoid to have well trained men in place to take over in case they were killed or cut off. If we can isolate or destroy Bottger, his whole army will disintegrate through lack of secondary leadership."

"OK, Ben. Anything else?" Michaels asked.

"Yeah. When you talk to the brigade commanders, tell them to let the troops know it's going to get a lot tougher the closer we get to Pretoria. Bottger will have stationed his best troops and most modern equipment close by his headquarters, to protect himself."

Michaels was making notes on a small pad as Ben talked. "What are we going to do next, Ben?"

"I plan to take the 501 to the east a bit, to avoid the worst of the desert country in Namibia. We'll skirt the desert by traveling on the central plateau, heading south at high speeds over the grasslands. When we get to Windhoek, about in the center of the country, we'll take a hard left to the east and head toward Botswana. If we angle slightly south, we'll pass just below the worst of the Kalahari desert."

Michaels frowned. "Boss, that's going to leave us awfully exposed. That country is nothing but grass plains, veld, and desert. There'll be absolutely no cover if we come under attack."

"I know, but it can't be helped, John. If we take the safe, long way around, all that we're fighting for back

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home may be lost. We're gonna haul ass across the open country, travel a lot at night, and depend on our air superiority to keep us safe. Let the troops know there'll be damn little sleep for the next week or so."

"Yes, sir," Michaels said, still frowning as he left the tent to radio Ben's orders to the other commanders.

Beth looked up from some old travel brochures which she had been reading while Ben and Michaels talked.

"General Ben, it says here that Namibia is the driest place on earth, and takes its name from the Nambib, a great swathe of desert along the eight-hundred-mile-long Skeleton Coast. It also says the central plateau savannas you told John we're going to cross are at an altitude of five thousand feet!"

"That's right, Beth. That means the troops are going to have to carry all our water with them, and the fatigue factor is going to be high at that altitude. In fact, the only free flowing rivers in Namibia are at the extreme northern and southern borders, with practically no water in between."

He stood up and pointed to the map on the wall of the tent. "In addition, as we progress farther east, toward Botswana, we'll run into the Kalahari sandveld, thousands of acres of red sand dunes, well vegetated with thornbush and high grass, but no surface water at all. We'll probably have to use the C-130s to transport our water to us as we travel then, 'cause it will be impossible to carry enough water with us for the entire journey."

Cooper shook his head. "All in all, Boss, it sounds like a delightful trip we're embarking on."

"It won't be fun, that's for sure, Coop. Especially if we come under air attack, as I expect us to when Bottger

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realizes our entire army has turned toward his headquarters in Pretoria."

"You think he might get a little excited, Chief?" Jersey asked.

Ben grinned an evil grin. "To say the least, Jersey, we'll certainly get his full attention."

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Major Marcus Cheli, commander of a New World Special Forces Unit with two Bantu scouts showing them the way through impenetrable jungles in Zimbabwe, was growing increasingly wary.

Their informant west of the Zambezi River in Zambia radioed that Rebel Battalion 12 had suddenly turned southeast at the Chizarira National Park area and headed into the heart of Zimbabwe. Immediately, the entire battalion simply disappeared.

Aerial recon had found nothing, no trace of a huge armored battalion with Abrams fifty-five ton tanks and the main battle tank employed by the Rebels-the M48A3-which was usually protected from the sky by Apache helicopter gunships.

Cheli's small Cessna recon planes had found nothing to report other than a sea of green jungle, apparently undisturbed by an army passing through it.

Nothing so large was capable of vanishing like this- an entire brigade-although the Russian spy plane had been shot down by a missile before it could cover enough of northern Zimbabwe to be absolutely sure there were no military units moving through the rain forest.

Moving as quickly as he dared northeast from the

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Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo, where his forces had been stationed, into northern Zimbabwe, Cheli had been charged with finding the Rebel strike force.

His instructions were clear, and he was told not to bother to return if they weren't carried out to the letter. He was ordered to send coordinates for a massive air strike against Colonel Marsh and his strike force by forces being gathered in Pretoria, to be commanded by General Conreid and Bruno Bottger himself.

It was a huge responsibility, with close scrutiny by Bottger and Conreid, and Cheli did not intend to fail. Leading a squad of fifty-four Special Forces soldiers, some armed with handheld Soviet rocket launchers, Cheli followed his native Zimbabwean Bantus along a quiet stretch of river, staying in contact with them by two-way radio equipped with scramblers.

Nala, a towering Zulu giant, moved west of the river, using all his jungle skills to keep from being detected. Okobe, a wiry Bantu from near the abandoned stone city of Great Zimbabwe, had been a lion hunter most of his life, and his cunning and knowledge of this jungle more than made up for his limited use of English.

Cheli pushed the transmit button on his radio. "Anything yet, Nala?"

A short crackle of static, then a whispered voice. "No, Major. There be nothing."

Cheli frowned, sleeving sweat off his face, irritated by a spider bite swelling on his forearm. He hoped like hell the spider, whatever it was, wasn't poisonous.

"Damn! Where the hell can that Marsh bastard be?" He said this to Captain Schmidt, his XO, walking through the jungle beside him.

"No telling," Schmidt replied, his red beret soaked with sweat, his face encircled by swarms of mosquitos lured to the sweaty camouflage greasepaint on his face,

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as if they savored the taste of it. His AK47 hung loosely under his arm by a strap. "An armored battalion cannot simply disappear. If nothing else, we should be able to pick up their helicopters when they leave the ground."

"At least we oughta be able to hear 'em," Cheli agreed as he wondered about Okobe moving along the opposite bank of the river, following an overgrown trail through the forest that had once been used by loggers and nomads harvesting sap from rubber trees.

"Yes, we should," Schmidt said, almost stumbling over a twisted mass of vines crossing the abandoned road.

Cheli changed frequencies and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Do you see or hear anything, Okobe?"

Okobe was positioned more than a mile upriver from the column, allowing him plenty of time to warn Cheli if he sighted the enemy.

More static. "No," Okobe answered in a hoarse voice. "No men. No soldiers."

"Any tracks? Anything at all?"

A silence, lasting too long. "See one footprint in river mud. Be a big boot. Some man cross over. Not be afraid of crocs."

They had seen dozens of giant saltwater crocodiles basking in sunny spots along the water's edge. These reptiles were very aggressive and territorial, not shy like the inland crocs found in fresh water. A few had made threatening charges toward some of Cheli's men.

"I wonder why someone wearing a heavy boot is out in the jungle here," Cheli said, shifting the weight of his AK47 to the other shoulder and asking Schmidt, "crossing a damn croc-infested river in boots?"

"A Scout, perhaps," Schmidt suggested. "The Rebels may be having as much trouble with recon as we are. This forest canopy is too thick for reliable air recon,

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thus they are left with the same choices we have . . . making an ID from the ground."

Cheli pushed the transmit button again. "Who could it be, Okobe?"

This time, Okobe's voice came back quickly. "Soldier. Jungle people don't wear big boots. Wear sandals. He not from this place, I sure."

Cheli warned, "Keep your eyes open. Let me know if you see even one more track. Or anything else."

Before Cheli could turn off his radio and put it back in his belt, he heard Okobe speak.

"Okobe have bad feeling. Somebody be watch me. I hear voice of spirits tell me to go back."

The major scowled. He spoke to Schmidt. "These superstitious bastards aren't worth the gunpowder it would take to kill them. They're afraid of their own damn shadows."

Schmidt didn't sound so sure. "Perhaps his senses have picked up something, only he doesn't recognize what it is yet. Bantus know the jungle, its sights and sounds. I wonder if he has seen or heard something he couldn't quite identify."

Cheli put the radio away. "Let's keep pushing. General Field Marshal Bottger and General Conreid are expecting to hear from us, and I damn sure don't want to be the one to tell either of them we haven't found a friggin' thing."

"Sadly, it would be the truth," the captain replied. "But no one wants bad news, I suppose. In this case, the bad news is that we haven't found a trace of Marsh's strike force . . . just that one bootprint where a man who isn't a native crossed over this section of river."

"No," Cheli answered, shaking his head. "The bad news is that if we don't find that Marsh bastard and radio his coordinates back to General Bottger, you and

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I might just as well jump into that river and let the crocs eat us, 'cause it'd be a better way to go than if we have to tell the general we failed."

He looked sideways at Schmidt, an ironic smirk curling the corners of his mouth. "In fact, if we do fail, I intend to just keep traveling north until I can find someplace to hide where he'll never find me."

Dusk made the forest so dark Cheli couldn't see much of anything. All day they had marched northeast and found nothing to report to Pretoria. Bottger and Conreid would be furious, and even with nothing to report Cheli knew he had to radio them with the bad news.

"These men are tired," Schmidt said. "We should call a rest stop and let them eat their provisions."

Major Cheli nodded. "I'll radio Nala and Okobe that we're stopping for an hour."

While Captain Schmidt passed the word along their column, Cheli made a radio call to Okobe.

"Okobe, we're stopping for an hour. Let me know if you see or hear anything."

Half a minute passed without any reply, with only dead air on the radio. "Come in, Okobe! Answer me, if you can hear me!"

Again, more silence. Perhaps Okobe, being on the stupid side, had turned his transmitter off. Cheli switched to Nala's frequency and said, "Come in, Nala. We're stopping for a while to rest."

When he got no answer to his call to Nala, something twisted in the pit of Cheli's stomach. Schmidt came walking up with a pint bottle of vodka.

"I can't raise Nala or Okobe. I know something's wrong," Cheli said, sleeving sweat off his forehead.

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Schmidt took a hurried sip of vodka, glancing at the thick vines and undergrowth around them. "Perhaps someone got to both of them before they could warn us."

Cheli's face paled. "What kind of man could sneak up on a Bantu in the jungle without him knowing it?"

When Schmidt shook his head, sweat running down his face, Cheli suddenly grabbed him by his shirt with both hands, sticking his face in close. "Tell the men to form a defensive perimeter right now!" Cheli snapped.

He released Schmidt's shirt and swung his AK47 around on its strap, where he held it with whitened knuckles, jacking back the loading mechanism to chamber a round. "We could have visitors any minute-" His voice was suddenly drowned out by a wall of machine gun fire coming from all directions, winking muzzle flashes accompanying the deafening blasts from thirty or forty guns.

Men began screaming all around them as Cheli hit the dirt on his belly, searching for a target with his AK47, finding so many that he simply pulled the trigger, spraying bullets back and forth.

Schmidt fell down beside him. "Son of a bitch! They have us surrounded!"

Cheli was momentarily angered by something so damn obvious coming from a seasoned soldier like Schmidt. "Start shooting!" he yelled as his magazine ran dry.

Schmidt sent a burst of fire into the forest. "But I can't see them, Major!" he yelled. "It's too damn dark!"

Cheli slammed a new mag into his rifle. "Spray 'em. You'll hit something!"

Now a fierce battle raged back and forth, guns blasting from both sides amid screams of agony and shouted

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warnings when someone spotted an enemy in the hazy darkness.

For five minutes or more the gunfire seemed endless, and Cheli's ears were ringing from all the noise, his nose stinging from the heavy cloud of gunsmoke hanging in the humid air like winter fog. The heaviest enemy gunfire came from the far side of the river.

Schmidt raised his eyes above a clump of ferns to get a better look at where he was shooting. At that instant his head snapped back. Cheli saw the back of the captain's skull split open. Blood and brains and hair flew from a giant hole below the rear hatband of Schmidt's beret.

"Auuugh!" Schmidt cried, flopping over on his side, staring at Major Cheli with three eyes . . . what appeared to be three eyes in the dark . . . with one centered between the pair he was born with.

Blood squirted from the hole in his forehead, cascading down his surprised face before he collapsed limply in a patch of deep grass, one foot quivering.

Cheli swallowed back bile. Somehow, they had allowed themselves to be surrounded by a Rebel force. His troops were taking a beating. Dozens of men were dead or wounded along the jungle trail.

Shadows moved through the forest upriver, and then came the sound of pistol fire, the heavy thud of clubs, the occasional glint of an axe blade where Rebels were attacking his squad at close quarters.

"Damn," he whispered, unable to look at his dead friend's bloodied face. Cheli started shooting at the shadows until yet another clip was empty.

While he was reloading, something struck the back of his head with tremendous force. He fell over on his face, releasing his rifle, too stunned to move. Through a fog he saw a pair of feet walk away from him, and

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then he noticed blood running down his neck. His skull throbbed with pain.

He tried to push himself up from the grass and vines until a wave of dizziness and nausea weakened him too much. He fell back down with his face resting on the stock of his AK47. Cheli found he was paralyzed, completely unable to move.

He felt sleepy, and closed his eyes to escape the agony of a wound somewhere on the back of his head. The battle sounds around him faded to silence as he was dimly aware he was losing consciousness.

Major Cheli opened his eyes, discovering that night had passed and a brilliant morning sun beamed through openings in the jungle canopy. How long had he been unconscious?

Very slowly, he raised his head, blinking furiously to clear his brain. What he saw all around him gripped him with a terror such as he had never known. Dead bodies, swarming with flies and feeding ants, lay everywhere.

His skull ached fiercely when he turned to look in another direction, the jungle trail behind him. More bodies, more flies and ants. He had never seen so much blood in his life. His shirt was covered with dried blood, and hundreds of ants were crawling over him ... he could feel them moving on his neck and back and shoulders, and feel their stinging bites.

Clouds of black flies hovered above him, buzzing, some clinging to his cheeks and filling his nose so that it was hard to breathe.

Cheli happened to glance toward the river when he heard a splash and other noises. Five or six big crocs were dragging the bodies of his men toward the river.

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Then, to his horror, he saw a huge croc crawling in his direction. "Oh, no," he whispered, a feeble, dry sound.

A sight just as terrifying awaited him on the riverbank, where two long stakes had been driven into the mud. Atop one stake was Okobe's severed head, his sightless eyes staring at Cheli. On the other stake, Nala's ebony head was also aimed at him, his jaw hanging open, flies swarming around it, crawling in and out of his mouth.

The Rebel army they'd encountered had left a message for anyone who found the battle site. The severed heads would soon be only fleshless skulls after the flies and ants fed, grinning at all who happened to pass this way.

The giant croc, at least fifteen feet long, came cautiously closer, scenting Cheli's blood. He tried desperately to get up and run away, but he was too weak to hold his head up any longer and let it fall back on his rifle.

He could hear the croc hiss, and the slither of its powerful claws moving through grass and ferns and vines. He caught a glimpse of rows of needle-like teeth as the creature opened its jaws.

"Please, no," he gasped, panting, fear causing him to tremble from head to toe. He was about to be eaten alive by a crocodile, the worst form of death he could imagine.

The croc grabbed his arm between its teeth, biting down as it shook its massive head. Cheli felt the bone in his forearm break, and he heard it crack. He shrieked in agony, struggling to free himself as he was being dragged slowly toward the river.

For some reason the croc let go momentarily. Then Cheli felt its teeth tear into his side just below his rib-cage.

He screamed again, the noise echoing back and forth

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among the trees before he was pulled down a muddy embankment, then submerged beneath the water, strangling off the last sound he ever made while the croc began to twist violently, jerking pieces of his flesh away from his body, taking him to the bottom to stuff him under a log until his flesh rotted enough to become an appetizing meal.

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"Tell General Field Marshal Bottger that General Dorfmann is here from Berlin. I must speak to him at once."

Bruno Bottger heard the voice through a crack in his office door leading to the secured waiting area in his underground bunker, where his private office was protected from air attack.

Why is Dorfmann here? he wondered, cringing inwardly.

Dorfmann commanded the Gestapo in New Germany. The New Nazi Party now governed most of what had once been Europe, held in an iron grip by Nazi forces. Their takeover had been swift and unexpected, and the Rebels were already making plans to return to Europe.

Dorfmann answered only to Kaiser Wilhelm II, political leader of New Germany. Bruno feared only one thing from Dorfmann . . . that he might discover his racial impurity, his Jewish mother, even though Bruno had made certain all her birth and death records had been destroyed. Dorfmann was tenacious, always digging to expose enemies of the New World Order.

While Bruno held a higher military rank and commanded The New World Order Army, he continued to worry that somehow Dorfmann would discover his dark

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secret, even though Bruno's New World forces were more or less politically independent of New Nazi Germany.

No one told Bruno Bottger what to do, quite simply because he had held the power, the military might, to crush anyone who stood in his way . . . until this upstart Rebel army led by General Ben Raines came to Africa.

Raines was proving to be a more difficult adversary than Bruno had thought in the beginning. Among the worst bits of news, Raines' forces Battalion 12, headed by that bastard Colonel Marsh, had wiped out one of Bruno's elite Special Forces squads in Zimbabwe.

The Rebel troops killed them down to the last man, including the squad's commander, Major Cheli, a feat Bruno had thought was impossible. Cheli had been among his best recon specialists in difficult terrain. To take him and his Bantu scouts by surprise implied an expertise in jungle warfare Bottger could only envy, and fear.

Bruno's trusted bodyguard, Rudolf Hessner, stuck his head through the doorway. "General Dorfmann is here from Berlin to see you."

"Show him in."

General Dorfmann entered the expansive office where an old Nazi flag adorned Bruno's back wall. Dorfmann saluted, his stocky, muscular body still fit even though he was well past the age of fifty. He wore a copy of the old Nazi uniform, as did all New Nazi soldiers, right down to the knee-high, black leather boots and bill cap.

Bruno merely nodded, not returning Dorfmann's salute as a show of superiority. Neither did he stand up behind his desk. He gave Dorfmann a casual stare.

"What brings to you Pretoria, Herr Dorfmann?" he

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asked, feigning indifference, as if whatever it was could hold no significance to him.

Without being asked Dorfmann took a seat across the desk and removed his cap, pushing a hand through his naturally blond hair, pale blue eyes riveted on Bruno.

"A matter of great urgency," he said in his heavy German accent. "Word of several military defeats for The New World Army has reached Berlin. This Rebel Army has the Kaiser worried, wondering if they will turn toward New Germany sometime in the future."

"I do not intend to let that happen, Herr Dorfmann."

Dorfmann nodded, plainly unconvinced. "We have learned a great deal about this General Raines from a man who fought him in the western hemisphere. That mercenary army was soundly defeated by Raines. These Rebels grow stronger, acquiring more equipment and more followers. Their so-called Manifesto continues to attract people from all over the world."

"I've heard of this Manifesto," Bruno said, suspecting there was more behind Dorfmann's unexpected visit. He was, after all, Gestapo, not a military field commander. Bruno still wondered why Dorfmann was here, and if he posed a threat to him.

"It has tremendous appeal to the oppressed, to starving men who believe in the foolish tenets of democracy. SUSA has been built on these principles. But Raines has military power as well as gilt-edged promises to offer believers, and now it appears he has too much military strength for you to contain him. As I said, the Kaiser is worried."

Bruno gave Dorfmann an empty smile. "Tell the Kaiser not to worry. All is going according to plan. I am luring Raines and his army across the continent toward South Africa. There we shall cut off all his sources of

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supply. He is doing exactly what I had hoped he would do."

Bottger yawned, as if bored by the conversation. "I have pulled my most effective troops back to the South African borders, in order to attack Raines after his supplies are no longer forthcoming."

"But the losses. We hear of so many of your defeats at the hands of the Rebels lately-"

"Soldiers must be expendable to serve the cause, General Dorfmann. Most of the men we have lost to Raines have been these simpleminded African natives- Bantu tribesmen, and especially Zulus. They are continually at war with each other, and when I offered the most powerful of the tribal warlords a handsome sum of money to fight for our cause the greedy bastards accepted, as I knew they would. They die quickly, and willingly, believing they are making themselves rich. Very few live to collect the wages I've offered, and those who do will be exterminated when we unleash the balance of our chemical and germ weapons on them as we pull out of Africa to cleanse it ... after we destroy Raines and his Rebels."

Bottger waved a dismissive hand, as if the deaths of the natives meant less than nothing to him.

"As you know," Bruno continued, "our ultimate goal is racial purity on this planet, as it was when the great Adolph Hitler unified most of Europe. Had it not been for the damned American intervention against the Fuh-rer, we would live in a perfect world where no genetic impurities exist."

Dorfmann glanced over his shoulder. "May I close the door so we can speak privately?"

Bruno felt adrenaline rush of fear course through him, making his heart pound like a trip-hammer. Was

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Dorfmann about to reveal something regarding his own racial mix? Had he discovered Bruno's Jewish lineage?

"Of course, General. Close the door if you wish." As he said it, Bruno pressed a hidden button under his desk, to alert Rudolf of the possibility of trouble.

Dorfmann got up and closed the door gently. Bruno noted he was carrying a Luger in a holster belted to his waist. Dorfmann sat back down, giving Bruno a piercing look.

"You mentioned racial purity before," Dorfmann began. "I wanted to inform you of something, in strict confidence, of course."

"Of course," Bruno said, sensing the direction Dorfmann was headed, wondering how much Dorfmann suspected, and how much he actually knew.

"There have been rumors in high circles having to do with you."

"High circles? Who do you mean? And what are these rumors?"

Dorfmann continued to stare at him coldly. The Gestapo was a place for men with ice in their veins, and Dorfmann fit this mold perfectly. He would have served Hitler well, Bruno thought.

"The Kaiser himself has mentioned it to me, as has General Borgdahl. Someone was looking into your past . . . for reasons I do not know. It seems nothing can be found about one side of your German family. There are no records concerning your mother. It is as if she did not exist. The Kaiser and General Borgdahl wonder if you can explain this, and give me some information about your mother so I can inform those who need to know."

Bruno tensed, but tried not to show it, reaching for a desk drawer. General Borgdahl was head of Schutztaf-fel, the Black Shirts, a death squad enforcing policies

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within New Germany by means of executions, killing enemies of the State.

Bruno began a well-rehearsed story he'd told German officials before. "My mother was a simple woman. A peasant from Bavaria. She was born at home, and never registered with the government because the family was so poor, simple farmers who did not understand The Order."

As he spoke he took a counterfeit file from his desk, containing forged records of the birth and death of a Gertrude Fest, his fictitious mother.

"I did, however, finally locate a few documents in the basement of a building in a small village in Bavaria. Here are my mother's documents, those I was able to find."

He tossed the file in front of Dorfmann, waiting, assuming a bored smile, as if he were totally unconcerned about the inquiry and Dorfmann's veiled threats.

Dorfmann, his gaze still fixed on Bruno, did not bother picking up the file. "Come now, General Field Marshal Bottger. Those records are false."

"False? Explain yourself." Bruno sat up straight in his chair. He was not used to his word being questioned.

"Your mother was not Gertrude Fest. I know who she was, or should I say I know what she was?"

"You must explain, and please tell me who else you have told about whatever you suspect."

Dorfmann smiled wickedly, enjoying himself. Bruno's right hand moved closer to the Steyer automatic pistol he kept in the same desk drawer.

"As you say, there are no records. However, I did find an old woman who knew your mother from childhood. I searched for a good many months to uncover this information."

"What information?"

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Dorfmann's smile broadened. "That your mother was a Jew."

Bruno knew what he had to do, what must be done. "I will deny it, of course, since it is not true."

"But it is true, Herr Bottger. I took down a statement from the old woman myself. Your mother was Gertrude Goldman, not Fest as you have claimed. She was even the daughter of a rabbi."

"Utter nonsense. The old woman is lying."

"No. She gave me exact details as to your birth, when and where. However, all records had been removed. I'm quite sure you removed them personally, so no one would know of your genetic weakness . . . impurity, shall I say."

"Have you informed the Kaiser or Borgdahl of these false charges in order to defame me in Berlin?"

"Not yet. I want to strike a bargain with you. I am sure you will agree."

"What sort of bargain, Herr Dorfmann?" Bruno asked, sitting back in his chair, relaxed now that he had decided what was to happen.

"I want to leave New Germany and join your army. In the end you will control most of the world, in my opinion, unless this General Raines is your undoing. I wish to be on the winning side when these wars are over."

Now it was Bruno's turn to smile. "You would become a traitor, Herr Dorfmann?"

"You know precisely what I mean. Calling me a traitor is using the wrong word. You are German, even if you are not of pure blood, fighting for New Germany as well as your New World Order. It is simply that I wish to be a part of what you are doing."

"And you'll use blackmail in order to do it?"

"Again, you have used the wrong word."

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Bruno pulled out his Steyer, aiming it across the desk. "I call it blackmail. Where is this statement you were given by the old woman?"

"I left it in Berlin for safekeeping, a form of insurance policy. I am surprised that you feel it necessary to point a gun at me." Dorfmann's eyes showed no fear, as though he was confident of his position in this tendered bargain.

"Where in Berlin, Herr Dorfmann? Your life hangs in the balance."

"In a bank safe-deposit box. Only one person has the key."

"And who might that be?"

"You don't really expect me to tell you, Herr Bottger. I would be at your mercy. And I know you won't shoot me, either."

Bruno felt sure he could locate Dorfmann's safe-deposit box and open it, using force if necessary. Few people in New Germany would challenge him, not even the Kaiser himself.

"Then I must inform you of your terrible mistake, Herr Dorfmann. You have misjudged me, thinking I could be blackmailed. I will find your safe-deposit box, and destroy the statement you were given. But you will not be here to see it happen."

Now Dorfmann drew back, his cheeks paling. "You cannot think you will get away with killing me."

"I'm quite sure of it," Bruno replied.

As Dorfmann fumbled at the flap covering his Linger, Bruno pulled the trigger on his nine millimeter automatic.

Seven hollowpoint slugs tore through General Dorfmann. His body jerked in the chair seven times. Blood splattered all over the floor of Bruno's office,

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just as Rudolf Hessner came rushing in with his pistol in his fist.

Dorfmann slumped to the concrete floor, making a wet sound when his body landed in a growing pool of blood, groaning, his legs quivering in death spasms.

"I was listening over the intercom," Rudolf said quietly, lowering the muzzle of his automatic. "But you did not say the code word to come in and kill him."

"Take his body to the lower level incinerator and cremate him. Wipe up the blood. Contact whoever flew him down here to Pretoria and tell them that General Dorfmann has not kept his appointment with me. Tell them I'm very concerned. Inform all guards to say that General Dorfmann has not been seen entering the compound. If he has a driver waiting, go up there and summon him to the lower level. You can say the general has asked to see him at once. Then kill him and put his body in the incinerator along with Herr Dorfmann."

Rudolf bent down to lift Dorfmann's legs, then he hesitated. "He is still breathing."

"What does it matter, Rudolf? Put him in the incinerator, anyway."

"I'll have to get a body bag to carry him down. If I drag him he'll leave blood all over the hallway and stairs."

"Do whatever you must," Bruno said, too bored now to bother with details, putting a full magazine back in his Steyer. "Make sure you take care of his driver and any aides he brought with him. If you need help, ask Johann to come with you."

"I won't leave anyone alive who came here with him," Rudolf promised.

As Rudolf left to get a body bag, Bruno gave Dorfmann a final glance. The head of the New German Gestapo, the only man in Germany who could discredit

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him for being part Jew, would be dead in a matter of minutes. Now, all Bruno had to do was fly to Berlin and locate Dorfmann's deposit box. Then he would have Rudolf kill the old woman who gave the statement to Dorfmann about his mother, and destroy the paper. His secret would remain buried forever. Ultimately, he would have to execute Rudolf, for overhearing what Dorfmann said about his mother being a Jew.

He put his thoughts back on General Ben Raines and his slowly advancing Rebel army. It was not true that Raines was falling into Bruno's trap, as he'd told Dorfmann. Somehow, Ben Raines was overcoming every obstacle Bruno put in his path, marching straight for Pretoria.

He wondered briefly if Raines knew of the location of his headquarters in Pretoria. No, it was one of his most closely guarded secrets, only members of the highest command level knew where his bunker was. There was no way Raines could have discovered its location.

Bruno did not like being the hunted instead of the hunter. Something had to be done to halt the Rebels. He reached for a two-way radio on his desk.

"Give me General Conreid," he said gruffly into the mouthpiece.

A clear voice answered moments later. "Yes, General Field Marshal."

"What has come of the strike against Colonel Marsh's unit?"

"We have been unable to locate them so far, sir. I am sorry."

"What the hell is happening? An entire armored battalion with air support cannot vanish into thin air."

"It is far more difficult to find them in the jungle. We are doing the best we can. Major Cheli evidently

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found them, but was unable to report their coordinates before he and his command were . . . ah, eliminated."

"Do better, General Conreid, or I will be forced to remove you from command and find someone else."

"I understand, sir," he said, sudden fear in his voice. "We are taking new measures even as we speak. I have sent Major Hans Schultz and a considerable force to the last coordinates reported by Major Cheli before we lost contact with him."

"Let's hope he can succeed where Cheli failed, or I may have to make some personnel changes in my command structure, General, starting with you," Bruno snapped, clicking off, tossing the radio on his desktop in frustration. He wondered what could be done to halt these damn Rebels soldiers. Nothing was working as it should. . . .

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Major Hans Schultz rode in his specially equipped armored personnel carrier down twisting jungle roads. They were deep in northern Zimbabwe, in a tropical rain forest where a report from a Zulu mercenary from Zanzibar claimed the sought-after Rebels were creeping through the heavy undergrowth at a snail's pace, hidden from the air by a canopy of trees so thick that aerial photographs showed nothing. But the Zulu insisted an armored column was traveling an old road used by game wardens in Cubango Province to halt ivory poachers years in the past.

Since the area was near Major Cheli's last reported position, Schultz decided to investigate the Zulu's claim.

Schultz had halfway expected to find the Rebels farther south, perhaps as far as the Matobo Hills, as he led his armored brigade north past the abandoned city of Great Zimbabwe, whose carved soapstone birds and monoliths had been abandoned and given over to the baboons, yet they negotiated this difficult terrain with their Bulldog fifty ton tanks and lighter Minsk twenty-two ton tanks without sighting the enemy.

But now, as they crept into the rain forests of the northern plateaus and high mountain ranges, where an entire squad of General Field Marshal Bottger's Special

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Forces had been wiped out, he knew they were on the verge of engaging a Rebel army. He could feel it in his bones.

"This heavy jungle has its advantages," he told Captain Hinz, his aide.

Fritz Hinz drove the APC, fighting the steering wheel over rough spots, through narrow openings in the vines and trees and brush.

"How is that, Major?" Hinz said without daring to take his eyes off the treacherous jungle trail. "I can't see a hundred yards in front of us most of the time."

"They can't hit us from the air, Fritz. No helicopter gunship on earth can navigate through these limbs and vines, not even their Apaches in the hands of their very best pilots. We will be safe from air-to-ground rockets."

"We have the same disadvantage, Major. We can't get our HINDs through, either. Nothing can fly through this, not even a hummingbird."

The clatter of heavy steel tank tracks moving in front and behind them was a comforting sound, Schultz thought. With ten of his smaller Minsk tanks in front of them, and twenty-seven much heavier Bulldogs bringing up the rear with big 105mm cannons and .50 caliber machine guns guarding trucks and APCs filled with infantrymen-more than three hundred of General Con-reid's best, the Praetorian Guard-he was ready for the Rebels even without air support.

"The Rebel commander we seek chooses not to fight us in the air, Fritz. There are staying under every bit of jungle cover they can find because Marsh has so few gunships. I suspect his Apaches are being transported on trucks."

"Perhaps that is why they're moving so slowly, Major. If they are here, they have not covered much ground since defeating Major Cheli's forces," Hinz said.

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Schultz nodded. "General Conreid says our best estimate is that Marsh has only three Apaches left."

"But they have a number of Abrams tanks, according to the report General Conreid gave you, and three times as many of the American-made M48s. They are said to be very maneuverable and quite fast, although we have never actually faced them in battle."

"We shall give them their ultimate test, Fritz."

"The report says General Field Marshal Bottger is angry with General Conreid for being unable to locate the Rebels in his sector. Let us pray the Zulu's information is good, or we will be peeling potatoes somewhere ... or worse."

Schultz picked up his two-way radio, turning to the frequency used by his scouts. "Come in, Beta Group. Have you spotted anything yet?"

A moment was needed for a voice to answer. "Nothing, Major, only more of this damn hot jungle. There is one thing, however I don't know what it means."

"And what is that?"

"Before there were hundreds of howler monkeys and parrots and macaws and that sort of thing scattering away from us. Now the jungle appears to be empty. It's very strange."

"Perhaps the wildlife hears us coming," Schultz suggested, "or they may hear the tanks from the strike force approaching from the north."

"Could be, Major. Only time will tell."

Schultz thought about what his Scout said, how the jungle seemed to be empty of animals. "This may be what we've been looking for. Stay on the alert. Let me know the minute you see anything at all."

"Will do, Major. Right now we can't see a damn thing at all. You'll be glad to know this road is widening out

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about a mile ahead of our column. The going will be easier for our tanks."

Schultz gave some thought to the possibility that Rebels planting land mines had scared the monkeys and birds away. But his scouts should have found at least one or two of the mines by now, unless only the large, heavy-load variety were planted. A man on foot would not set one off. Could they be pushing ahead into a mine field? he wondered.

Later, as Fritz negotiated a low muddy spot in four-wheel drive, Schultz decided against it. His scouts were too clever not to have noticed some sign of mines being planted.

The earthshaking concussion of a Minsk being blown to bits caused Major Schultz to stiffen in his seat. "What the hell was that?"

Fritz brought the APC to a sudden halt. "Either a mortar or a land mine has blown up one of the Minsks. The turret and cannon went flying into the jungle, and the body is on fire. The fuel and cannon shells will explode any second now."

Before the words left Fritz's mouth, a mighty secondary explosion rocked the jungle. A ball of flame curled upward into the rain forest treetops, setting some of the upper branches on fire.

"Dear God," Schultz whispered when a Minsk tank just in front of the first to be hit erupted in steel shreds amid the roar of a rocket strike.

"Handheld rocket launchers!" he cried above the clap of another explosion. "Pull off into the jungle!" he shouted into the mouthpiece of his radio, instructions to all tanks and trucks. "Take evasive action at once!"

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A Minsk swerved off into a tangle of vines, where it struck a land mine almost immediately. The tracks blew off in sections as the body and turret convulsed.

Schultz turned around when an even louder explosion came from his rear. A huge Bulldog fifty ton tank disintegrated when it drove over a mine only a few yards off the roadway. The Bulldogs had a weakness-armor plate too thin to protect their underbelly-and when a heavy charge was set off underneath it, the tank came apart like a tin can.

"Son of a bitch!" Schultz cried. "There are mines all over the place."

Following the first crippling blast under the Bulldog, a secondary explosion of its 105 millimeter shells scattered fragments of the tank like shrapnel, cutting down trees, pulverizing every plant in its path, igniting even the greenest vines and bushes when sprays of flaming fuel covered them.

Suddenly the thump of mortars being fired sounded from off in the jungle. A mortar shell landed somewhere at the rear of the column, and Schultz heard men screaming.

Another rocket sizzled into a Minsk across the road from Schultz's APC. The turret went spinning away like a hat blown in the wind, surrounded by fire and smoke, but the sound was lost when more mortars and cannons went off. Some of his gunners were taking aim at the enemy, and the pounding of shells landing in the rain forest was like sweet music.

Fritz glanced over his shoulder at the major. "Where shall I drive?" he yelled to be heard above the battle sounds crashing and banging from all directions.

"Stay here!" Schultz replied in his loudest voice. "It could be a mistake to move now!"

A Bulldog tank, moving deeper into the jungle, struck

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a mine, and despite its great weight appeared to leave the ground as the charge went off under it. Scraps of flaming metal flew up to the highest treetops before the armored vehicle fell off its tracks and axles, engulfed in smoke and flames, the men inside screaming in agony as their flesh literally melted in the intense heat of the flames.

The chatter of machine gun fire filled brief pauses in the exchange of cannons and mortars. Somewhere to the north another explosion announced a rocket strike on a tank.

They are too heavily armed, Schultz thought, and we drove right into their trap. He recalled what the scout told him about the absence of birds and monkeys in the forest. He should have known then that something was wrong, and called a halt until the scouts found out what it was.

A mortar shell fell very close to the APC and the concussion shook its frame, interrupting something Schultz was listening to on the two-way radio, a command to infantrymen from the back of the column.

"We must get out of here!" Fritz cried. "We'll take a hit any time now if we sit still!"

"Wait. We will gain an advantage very soon, I feel sure, and I must be here to direct our return fire."

"We may not be alive, Major!"

"Nonsense. Bottger's Praetorian Guard is spreading out into the jungle. It won't be long until the advantage is ours. Stay where we are!"

"Yes sir . .." Fritz's voice was drowned out by a rocket striking a Bulldog tank very close to them. A peal of thunderous noise almost deafened Schultz for a moment, and Fritz hunkered down in his seat, covering his ears with his hands, his face gone pale with fear.

Schultz hit the transmit button on his radio. "All

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units! Move deeper into the jungle! Attack all enemy mortar positions at once!"

The roar of diesel engines followed the major's order, and soon more than a dozen tanks were moving, crashing through deep undergrowth, crushing small trees and bushes in their path. But only moments after Schultz gave die order he realized his serious mistake, when moving tanks began to explode, running over even more heavy land mines.

"It can't be . . ." Schultz said under his breath, watching his powerful armored fighting machines being blown to pieces to the north and south of his position. "How could they have known exactly where to put them?"

"We must move!" Fritz yelled. "We are a sitting duck right here. Please, Major."

"Shut up, you yellow bastard!" Schultz replied, his rage growing as more of his tanks blew up.

"But sir-"

"I said shut up. And remain here!"

Fritz had tears in his eyes when he looked into the back seat. "We will be killed, sir, and I have a family, a wife and two sons."

"You are a soldier, you insolent fool! And now I discover you are also a cowardly one."

"I have no wish to die, sir. If we move carefully to some place out of sight, perhaps they won't target us."

"You idiot! I must be able to see in order to direct our battle plan."

"Sir, our battle plan is failing. These Rebels are destroying us."

Schultz refused to accept what his eyes and ears told him, that every word Captain Hinz said was true. His tanks were easy targets for rockets and mortars, and

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whenever they moved they encountered more land mines.

"I must not fail General Conreid or General Field Marshal Bottger!" he snapped as the noises from pitched battle grew even louder.

Explosions were occurring up and down his entire column with increasing frequency. Schultz knew Fritz was right to be afraid of their present position in the APC. It was only a matter of time before a rocket or a mortar shell found them, and it was all too clear this engagement was about to be lost.

"All right, Captain," he said, slumping back in the seat as more garbled orders crackled on his radio. "Find some cover for us, but don't go too far."

Fritz started the motor and ground gears. Pulling forward, he inched across a tangle of vines toward a thick clump of small rubber plants that would hide the APC.

Schultz heard more machine gun fire, and then a chorus of screams. Were the fearless Praetorian Guardsmen being cut down by enemy fire?

Fritz guided the APC over a bump, striking something with the left front wheel.

"What was that?" Schultz asked.

"I don't know, sir," Fritz stammered as the left rear wheel passed over the same bump.

A banging noise filled the inside of the armored vehicle, and at the same time Major Schultz felt a powerful force lift him up off the rear seat, slamming his head into the roof.

"No!" Fritz shrieked, before the explosion drowned out every other sound.

Yellow fire swept across Major Schultz's face, his chest, and arms and legs. He tried to suck in a breath of air, but when he did he inhaled a mouthful flames.

He tried to scream and spat fire when he did, but

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there was no sound, and it was as if his mother had turned out the lights in his bedroom, the way she did when he was a boy. Everything went black and silent, and now he felt and heard nothing.

The war was over for Major Hans Schultz and the Praetorian Guardsmen.

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General Conreid came into Bruno's subterranean office, his face a ghostly white. He saluted smartly and stood at attention until Bruno spoke to him.

"What is so important that you told Rudolf you had to see me right away?"

Conreid took a deep breath. "I have bad news, General Field Marshal."

"I guessed as much. It must have something to do with your armored division tracking the strike force."

"I'm afraid so," Conreid replied. "I sent one of our best field armored commanders, Major Schultz, and almost fifty of our Minsks and Bulldogs. Three hundred men from the Praetorian Guard went along as infantry support. ..."

"And?" Bruno was growing impatient, although he had already guessed what Conreid came to tell him. He stared at the general, drumming his fingers on his desk, daring Conreid to give him the bad news he knew was coming.

"We engaged the enemy in southern Zimbabwe-"

"It does not matter where! Get on with it!"

Conreid swallowed hard, and his hands, pressed to his legs, were shaking. His eyes flicked around the bunker, afraid to look at Bottger.

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"They destroyed us. Every tank was immobilized or blown to bits. Five men escaped on foot in the jungle. One of them just radioed me with a full report The Rebels were equipped with anti-tank rockets and heavy mortars. Major Schultz is dead, and so is everyone else. However, I was told the Rebels captured Captain Klaus, commander of the Praetorian Guard Unit. I suppose they intend to question him."

Bruno momentarily closed his eyes, fighting back the urge to use his Steyer on General Conreid. Incompetence could not be tolerated.

Bruno leaned his head back, staring at the water-stained concrete ceiling of his bunker. He sighed. "They will interrogate Klaus, probably with drugs, wanting to know about our fortifications here at Pretoria so the information can be sent to General Raines. It is quite clear this bastard Raines intends to storm our headquarters. There is no other explanation for the curious movements of his battalions."

"I agree," said Conreid. "They move back and forth to confuse us, but every Rebel battalion seems to be moving toward South Africa, toward Pretoria."

Bruno glanced at the map on a nearby wall, with its colored pins showing the locations of Raines's battalions spread across the African continent. Their movements of the last few days had altered, so that all of his forces were now headed straight for Pretoria and the headquarters of Bottger's New World Order troops.

"There seems to have been a shift recently in Raines's troops movements. Their intelligence must have found out where we are headquartered, for all of his forces are now coming directly toward us," Bruno said.

"I agree, General Field Marshal. Somehow they have learned of our location in South Africa, but it is hard

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to believe they know about our underground fortifications."

Conreid spread his hands, trying to put the best face on the disturbing news. "Perhaps they only know our general location near Pretoria, and not the extent of our preparations."

"Will this Captain Klaus talk if they torture him?"

"That. . . would be difficult to say. He is a brave soldier, as his record shows, but virtually any man will crack under the right amount of pressure." Conreid was sweating profusely under Bottger's questioning. "As we know from the past, these Rebels are experts in the use of drugs and psychological questioning to gain information." He shook his head. "I don't know how long Klaus will be able to hold out without telling them everything he knows."

Bruno settled back in his chair. "So your brilliant strategy has failed us, General Conreid. You assured me you could find your objective and crush them soundly."

Bruno's voice rose until he was almost shouting as he became more agitated. "Instead, you tell me we've been handed a crushing defeat, losing fifty valuable tanks and their support vehicles." He slammed his hand down on his desk, sending papers and files flying to the floor.

Conreid nodded, having some difficulty finding his voice for the moment. "Somehow, they were expecting us at a particularly difficult spot to defend. The survivor who radioed me said it was deep jungle, and that land mines had been well placed in the most strategic and damaging areas."

"Your tanks were drawn into an ambush?"

"It would seem so. Schultz was a brilliant field commander, and I'm at a loss to explain it. I can only offer this, and it will seem a weak excuse. Colonel Marsh has

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virtually no air support, thus his troops stay in the deepest jungles where our air superiority is of no use. If we could have put the HINDs on top of them, this disaster would not have happened. Colonel Walz had air recon over the area, and he found no trace of an entire Rebel unit in either Botswana or Zimbabwe. We found out where the strike force was from a Zulu mercenary. Walz could give us nothing at all."

"Then it would seem I have incompetent men directing our aircraft and our armored divisions," Bruno told him as his anger multiplied. He leaned forward and slammed his fist on the desk again.

Conreid flinched, but said nothing as Bruno fixed him with a steely-eyed stare. "You have failed me miserably, General. I will not tolerate failure. I find I'm surrounded by incompetence, by idiots! In the days of the great Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler, both of you would have been shot for failing our cause. Hitler would not have tolerated this!"

"I understand, General Field Marshal. I simply did the best I could, devising the best plan feasible to destroy an army that will not come out in the open to fight. The Rebels stay hidden, leaving us with no choice but to ferret them out of their jungle hiding places. I could think of no other way without cover from our airships. We had to go in after them, to try to halt their march on Pretoria."

Bruno's jaw clamped. "Instead, you led our men and materiel to total destruction!"

"I cannot deny it. I have served you and The New World Order as faithfully as I knew how. Until we were confronted by this band of Rebels, I enjoyed a great many successes in the name of our cause. But Marsh does not fight with military strategy. It is as if he always

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does the thing we expect least from a well-trained army. I can offer you no other explanation."

"What the hell will stop him from marching all the way to our doorstep, General?"

For the first time, Conreid smiled, albeit weakly. "If he gets this far he will be forced to come out in the open. If he turns west to come at us across northern Botswana, he must then face the Kalahari Desert in the south. His tanks will break down in the sand. We can direct air strikes on him until he has been wiped out, down to the last man."

"But what if he stays to the east, coming down through Zimbabwe, following the rivers the way he has in the past?"

"He and General Raines and his other brigade will still have to cross the Transvaal. When they do, we will blow them off the face of the earth. There will be no places to hide from our bombers and rockets, and our anti-aircraft gunners will knock their Apaches from the skies."

Bruno wondered, tapping a finger on his desk. He stared at die map without seeing it as his mind wandered to the past. What was happening now was all too much like events that had happened in Europe many years ago. . . .

The weakling United Nations Secretary-General, Moon, had branded him a neo-Nazi fanatic and a major threat to world stability. Bruno had raised a massive army to realize his dream of reviving The Third Reich in the post-apocalyptic world. He had formed an elite Minority Eradication Force in Switzerland, and almost 250,000 veteran troops to prepare for war against Ben Raines and other SUSA armies.

After several months of bloody fighting, Bruno had called for a meeting in Geneva. There, he had made

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his racial position clear-the lands he controlled would be his empire forever, and he vowed to fight to the death to defend it, an empire where he would allow no Jews or blacks or any other minorities. By then, his army had risen to almost 3,000,000 men.

And it was in Geneva where Bruno had related that his scientists were developing a serum which caused infertility, which he planned to introduce to the drinking water supply in Africa and Asia, to thin the world's minority populations.

When the talks grew ugly Bruno's men staged an attack and captured President Blanton, with a motive-to fake his rescue and win global sympathy. Ben Raines had exposed his plan before he could put it into action.

Since then, he and Raines had become sworn enemies.

Bruno had given Raines an ultimatum: be out of Europe in twenty-four hours, or all-out war would commence. Bruno had no choice but to back up his threat and attack, when Raines ignored the ultimatum.

Bruno's empire, called the New Federation, all but collapsed. He was driven back across Germany, with high casualties, heading for Russia. Raines cut him off, and Bruno was forced to stage his own suicide, leaving his second in command, General Henrich, to show Raines a body said to be that of Bruno Bottger.

While this delaying tactic was going on Bruno took a hundred thousand of his men and escaped to Africa, to start over.

All this, because of Ben Raines-being forced to quietly rebuild a powerful army, equipped with the best weaponry on earth while in hiding in Pretoria, biding his time until he was ready.

And now, Raines was coming after him again. And again, it seemed nothing could stop him.

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Bruno came out of his reverie and spoke to Conreid. "Tell Colonel Walz I want a meeting tonight. Inform General Ligon. Perhaps now it is time to put our germ and chemical weapons to better use from the air. We will see if General Raines and his Rebels are fully prepared for a new type of war."

Conreid seemed relieved now that Bruno's anger had passed and he was thinking rationally again. "I will summon Walz and Ligon. I agree. The time has come to put everything to the ultimate test. We cannot withstand any more huge casualties or our weapons stock will be seriously depleted. We have superiority in the air, or so Walz has led us to believe. Let's test the Rebels in the skies."

Bruno pored over his maps, then studied recon reports, though they were few and probably grossly inaccurate. He had given up letting others plan what his New World Order armies would do, deciding he could devise his own defense and counterattacks.

Rudolf Hessner looked on from a chair across the desk as did Colonel Walz, General Ligon, and General Conreid, who had arrived only moments ago for the meeting.

"They'll come from three directions," Bruno said, talking to himself as much as to the others. "One fork, led by Raines himself and his 501 Brigade, will come from the west, across the southern tip of Nambia, either along the Adantic coast or across Great Namaland." He pointed a finger to a spot on the map.

"Our latest reports have Raines turning east. Evidently he is taking the more direct route toward Pretoria, and is planning to cross the Kaokoveld plains in order to make better time."

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Rudolf Hessner spoke up. "That is correct, Herr General Field Marshal. Latest reports show Ike McGowen and the 502 Battalion were slowed in their passage through the Congo area by its dense jungles and constant attacks by our native and mercenary forces. They are quite a ways behind Raines and his 501 Battalion, and should pose no immediate threat to us ... if we can slow or defeat Raines as he crosses the high desert plains of Nambia."

Colonel Walz nodded. "We will be able to see Raines's troops coming from the air. Namaland is fairly open. Not many places to hide tanks or APCs as they cross the veld, so they will be very dependent on their air cover, both for defense and to attack our forces in advance of Raines's arrival. Our radar will pick up their aircraft as they approach. We can set up anti-aircraft batteries west and north of Johannesburg to limit their effectiveness. We'll put them in deep bunkers so they can't be taken out by smaller rockets carried by Raines's fighter planes."

"Good," Bruno said, moving his finger to the Republic of Botswana. "I know Ben Raines . . . the way his mind works. He'll send a force of some kind across the Kalahari, probably with strong air support, fighters and helicopter gunships. Here is where we'll meet him head-on in the skies, with tank battalions to back us up."

"A very good idea," General Conreid said. "We can put a few anti-aircraft cannons in fortified sand pits near Serpwe, where there is enough rock to protect them. Sending tanks out into the Kalahari will be something he won't expect. However, our Minsks can do well in sand or snow."

Bruno looked at Colonel Walz. "Can we give this area enough air support, Colonel?"

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"Of course, General Field Marshal."

Now Bruno turned to General Ligon. "The Kalahari would be a good place to drop nerve gas bombs on Raines and his troops. We know from previous failures in Cameroon and Angola that they are impervious to our anthrax agents. Mustard gas and tear gas will force them into protective gear which will slow them down significantly in the desert heat."

"I agree," Ligon said. "Our inventory contains well over five hundred mustard gas canisters, and over twice that many of the tear gas bombs. If we drop the right number of both on the forces coming across the Kalahari they will suffer immeasurably in the desert heat, and with the prevailing winds in their faces the gas will linger for long periods of time."

"I want the bastards to suffer," Bruno hissed, returning to his map. "Now all we have to do is prepare our defenses and plan for attack in Zimbabwe."

He pointed to the small country east of Botswana, just below Zambia. "From the positions where he was last sighted, I feel that the elusive bastard will come at us from western Zimbabwe, using the jungles and rivers as cover, since he seems to be afraid to come out into the open and fight."

He faced his generals. "Any ideas on how we might at long last defeat the strike force?"

"Napalm," Colonel Walz suggested.

"Yes. I like the idea of using Napalm there," Conreid agreed quickly.

"It will set the jungle ablaze," General Ligon agreed. "If we score direct hits they will be cooked alive, and then we can go in and mop up with tanks and infantrymen."

"I hope you are right in your assessment. Marsh has

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been a thorn in my side for some time now, and has defeated us at every turn."

He turned back to the map. "The other forces converging on us are not an immediate threat. Raines's brigades to the east, traveling down the coast through Mozambique and eastern Zimbabwe, are far behind. If we can defeat them, it will be a crushing blow to the Rebel forces, and they might even decide to give up on their mad scheme to drive us from Africa."

Bruno's eyes glittered with a mad gleam as this thought was uttered. After a moment of reflection, he looked up. "Make these preparations, gentlemen. And be sure of one thing. If any of you fails to carry out his assignment, I will personally see to your execution."

"Do not worry," General Ligon said as he got up from the table. "Our chemical weapons will not fail if they are delivered properly."

Colonel Walz nodded when he stood up. "Rest assured they will be delivered correctly by my aircraft, General Field Marshal Bottger. I will not fail you."

General Conreid got up last. "I will redeem myself for what happened in Zimbabwe. This, I promise you."

"Then get started," Bruno said evenly, looking around the group with hooded eyes. "This will be the final defeat of all Rebel forces."

"We intend to make certain of it," Walz said, turning on his heel to be let out by Rudolf.

One by one his officers filed out of the room, leaving Bruno alone with Rudolf. Rudolf came over to the table with a question on his face.

"Keep a close eye on General Conreid," Bruno said, keeping his voice low.

"Do you suspect him of treason?" the muscular Rudolf asked, frowning.

"Perhaps. Perhaps he is only a clever fool. I may have

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been blind to his shortcomings. Report his every movement to me, and if he makes a mistake in these preparations, or if he talks to anyone who may be suspicious, I want to be informed."

Rudolf smiled, a chilly smile. "Then, if you wish, I will kill him for you and make him suffer a terrible death."

Bruno shook his head. "If he is a traitor, or even merely a fool who has led our soldiers to their deaths, that is exactly what I have in mind for him."

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At three-thirty in the morning, Ben met with a ten member Scout squad in his CP tent.

"Captain Dominguez, are you and your men ready, and are you clear on what I want?"

Captain Raul Dominguez stood ramrod straight in front of his general. "Yes, sir! My team is going to do a night drop into the town of Tshane, just south of the Kalahari. We are to infiltrate the town, silently, and set up a radio link to the 501. Our orders are to watch for any aircraft or other sizable contingent of forces out of Pretoria and to let you know soonest, so as to prevent a surprise attack."

Ben eyed the Scouts, the toughest, meanest fighting men in the history of warfare. They had the dirtiest job in the army-to go out ahead of the battalions and find out what the commanders faced ahead of them. These men were used to being on their own in enemy territory, and they thrived on it. Aside from Intelligence gathering, they were experts on infiltration, assassination, and other techniques for sowing fear and terror in the hearts of the enemy. They had been remarkably effective in every campaign Ben had fought.

"Remember," Ben advised. "We need you primarily

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for Intelligence on this trip. Try to keep the killing and mayhem to a minimum, Captain."

Dominguez smiled with his lips, but his eyes were ice cold and deadly. "I'll do my best, sir. We won't kill anyone unless it's absolutely necessary to carry out our mission."

"OK, men." Ben walked up to each of the ten men and shook their hands one by one, wishing them good luck.

As they filed out of the tent, Beth looked at Ben and shivered. "Boss, those men give me the creeps. Their eyes are . . . dead."

Ben nodded, "Yeah. I'm certainly glad they're on our side, Beth."

The Huey transport chopper, specially rigged to fly almost without sound, hovered at five thousand feet just outside the city limits of Tshane. Any lower, and the residents would be able to hear the chopper's engines.

The pilot looked back over his shoulder and gave Raul a thumbs up signal.

Dominguez nodded and turned to his men. "Show time, gents. Let's fly!"

He dove headfirst out of the door, followed closely by his team. They were all wearing black T-shirts and jeans with black greasepaint on their faces, and their parachutes were made of black silk so as not to be seen against the night sky.

Within minutes the team was assembled on the ground and had their chutes folded and packed. Each man carried a CAR, a 9mm automatic pistol, and a razor-sharp combat knife. These weapons were almost superfluous, as each man was as deadly in hand-to-hand combat as a ninja.

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The scouts lined up behind Raul and jogged over two miles of hard-packed sand toward Tshane. The city was small, consisting mainly of adobe and brick houses, with few larger buildings.

There were no lights showing at this early hour as the team ran silently through the deserted streets. On the southern side of the city, Raul found a three-story building which looked like an abandoned store of some sort.

He used his knife to pry the lock off the door and ushered his men in, CARs at the ready in case there were inhabitants.

Finding none, Raul stationed three men on the roof and two in each of three rooms facing south, toward Pretoria. He set up radios in two of the rooms and instructed his men to keep their combat mikes on at all times.

Each of the men carried 70X100 power Bushnell binoculars, and there was one 100 Power telescope which was set up on the roof. After they were settled in, Raul instructed them to break out their rations and eat and drink plenty of water.

"It's gonna get plenty hot in this building when the sun comes up, men, so keep up with your fluids. We may have a long wait until something breaks."

Ben Raines looked out the back of the lead vehicle as his army caravan drove south at high speed across the kaokoveld of Nambia.

"Jesus, would you look at that," he said.

The other members of his team who were riding with him all looked out the rear windshield of the big nine passenger SUV Cooper was driving.

There behind them, rising from the hundreds of ve-

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hides and transports following them, was a huge dust cloud, looking like a bank of river fog as it rose in the bright sunlight.

"Bottger's planes sure as hell won't need radar to find us," Jersey said, "all they have to do is follow the dust."

"That's the thing about veld country," Ben said. "The large expanse of flat, dry land, covered with minimal amounts of buffalo grass, is excellent for our vehicles to traverse. The problem is we're visible to anyone within twenty miles or more, and there's no place to hide or take cover in the event of an attack."

"Let's hope our scout planes give us enough warning to radio for air cover should we need it," Cooper said, glancing in the side rearview mirror as he drove.

"Oh, I have no doubt we'll come under attack at some point on our journey," Ben replied. "It's just a question of whether it'll be from native and mere forces or from the big guns of Bottger's specialized armies."

Ben's 501 Brigade had started out early that morning, just prior to dawn, and had already covered over two hundred miles, traveling at an average of forty to fifty miles an hour. Even the big Abrams tanks were able to make forty miles an hour, though it was rough on the drivers and gunnery officers, who had to be relieved every few hours due to the shaking and bumping of the large vehicles over the rough terrain.

Ben, as usual, insisted on being in the lead car, over Michaels' objections. He said it was good for morale for the men and ladies of his command to see him out front, "riding point," as he put it.

Michaels wasn't convinced, being afraid Ben would be killed in the event of an attack by Bottger's army. Ben told him he could never ask any of his men to do

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that which he was not willing to do himself, and that settled the argument.

From the banks of the Kunene River, they coursed due south southeast toward the city of Khorixas, just below the Etosha National Forest. Game along the way was plentiful, and they saw dozens of the so-called desert elephants, rhinos, and lions roaming freely.

Nambia's big game animals had virtually been hunted to extinction in the old days, but since the war, with the resultant marked reduction in population, the animals had started to make a comeback.

Beth called out, "Look, there's a herd of black-faced impalas. My guide book says they were endemic to the Kaokoveld, and only recendy have begun to come back in large numbers."

Herding next to the impalas were several giraffes, with young animals tagging clumsily along behind, looking terribly awkward with their spindly legs and ridiculously long necks.

As the brigade roared across the veld, herds of zebras and the tiny Damara dik-diks were also frightened into stampedes. Ben had his sub-commanders caution their soldiers against shooting any of the wildlife, unless needed for food.

Ben pushed his troops on through Khorixas witihout stopping, since Intelligence had information there was a large contingent of natives there who were less than friendly to any white men, especially Rebels.

Due to the impending emergency back home Ben had decided to cease his earlier efforts to help the leaders of African villages and towns, get rid of the punks and gangs that had arisen since the war, and to go straight for Bottger's headquarters to try to end this African campaign as soon as possible.

Fifty miles to the south was the smaller city of Brand-

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berg, where he called a halt to the caravan and let the troops get out of the transport vehicles for a much needed rest and some hot food.

Mess tents were set up and food and drink and a two hour rest period provided, so the troops would be fresh when the attack that Ben suspected was coming arrived.

As Ben's team finished tfieir meal and laid out sleeping bags in the shade of a building, Anna said, a smile curving her lips, "I'll move my sleeper over here, so Jersey and Coop can bunk next to each other, like they did in the jungle."

She cocked her head to the side, "Is that OK, Coop?"

Cooper never hesitated. "Sure, it's OK by me. Jersey and I are thinking of setting up housekeeping together when we get back to the states, isn't that right, Jerse?"

He managed to give Jersey a wink where Anna couldn't see it, to let her in on the joke.

"Sure," Jersey said. "I've agreed to do all the house-cleaning and cooking and hold down a job, and all I ask of Cooper is that he let me sleep with his hunky body at least three times a week. If he does, it will make my life complete," she said, staring at Cooper adoringly.

"What!" Anna shouted. "You've got to be kidding!"

"As a matter of fact, we are, you nosey little brat," Cooper said, scowling. "And any more teasing from you, Anna, and I'm going to take you over my knees and spank your behind."

Anna looked aghast. "You wouldn't dare!"

Jersey put her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow. "If he won't I will, girlfriend."

"OK, OK, I'll keep my mouth shut about your sojourn in the jungle."

Ben laughed. "If you do, it'll be the first time you've kept your mouth shut about anything since I've known you, Anny."

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With that, the team lay down and grabbed some much needed shut-eye for the remainder of the two hour rest period.

Later on, when they were about halfway from Brand-berg to Windhoek, Corrie's radio squawked.

"Corrie here, go ahead."

"Michaels here, Corrie, put Ben on and hurry."

"Ben here, John. Go ahead."

"I just heard from Captain Dominguez and the team of Scouts we parachuted into Tshane in Botswana."

"What did he say, John?"

"Several squadrons of planes took off less than an hour ago, heading out of Pretoria. A group of fighter planes is headed this way, followed thirty minutes later by some medium range bombers."

"Bombers?"

"Yes, sir. And the troubling thing is, the bombers were carrying canister bombs under their wings instead of the high explosive types we would expect."

Ben thought for a moment. "Then it sounds like Bottger is going to try to drop either biological or chemical agents on us, while the fighter planes keep our air support busy."

"Yes, sir, those were my thoughts. But since they must know their biological weapons have failed against us in the past, my bet is on chemical agents-nerve gas, tear gas, mustard gas, those kind of things."

Ben sighed. "The man is truly crazy. Okay, alert our air cover to their plan, and let's halt the column and get the troops in anti-gas gear."

"You want the full Racal suits? That's going to be brutal in this heat."

"There's no help for it, John, it'll be a lot less brutal

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that dying in convulsions or having the boys' skin peel off from the mustard gas."

"Oh, there was one other message."

"Yeah?"

"The Scouts said another contingent of planes flew off more to the east, probably headed toward Colonel Marsh and the 12 Bat."

"I'll have Corrie bump Marsh and let him know what's headed his way. Were those planes also carrying chemical bombs?"

"No, sir. The scouts said it was mainly HINDs and some older MIG fighter-bombers, and it looked more like napalm and HE type bombs on the MIGs."

"And Marsh has very little air support to counter the attack. He's down to just a few Apache choppers. Can we lend him any of ours?"

"No, sir. Not if we're going to have to fight both fighters and bombers. We wouldn't stand a chance of stopping the bombers if we divided our forces."

"Damn! Well, Marsh will just have to make do with what he has. At least he's got the jungle for cover. Maybe he can spread his troops out and hide, to minimize the effectiveness of the napalm."

Michaels chuckled. "Did you ever see Marsh hide, from anything?"

Ben laughed, too, trying to visualize the tough commander being afraid of anything or anybody. "No, John. I can't say as I have."

"I'll alert our air cover and troops while you try to get hold of Marsh and warn him of what's coming. OK?"

"That's affirmative. Raines out."

"Michaels out."

Ben looked over at Corrie, who was bent over her radio, talking hurriedly, a frown on her face.

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"You get hold of Marsh yet, Corrie?"

"No, sir. I'm having trouble getting through to him. I can't tell if his radio's down or if we're being jammed by Bottger's forces."

Ben stared at her. "Corrie, if we don't warn Marsh, they'll hit him with napalm, and turn that entire area into a raging inferno. We've got to get through."

"I'm doing the best I can, Boss. Believe me, if there's any way to get a message to Marsh, I'll find it."

"Good. Now, Coop, break out the Racal suits and anti-gas masks. We've got trouble headed our way, too. I want our troops spread out in a defensive line, not all bunched up along the road. That way if some of the bombers do make it past our air support, they won't have a concentrated target to aim for."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right on it."

"Corrie, see if you can bump Colonel Holland, head of our air support team."

A few minutes later, Ben was talking to Colonel Jerry Holland, leader of the small squadron of jet fighters and overall commander of air support for the 501.

"Jerry, have you been informed of what's coming?"

"Yes, sir. I just got off the horn with John Michaels."

"What do you think?"

"I think they'll come in low and fast. Since they don't know we're aware of their approach, they'll probably fly on the deck, about five hundred feet or so to avoid our radar, and come straight at us, hoping to hit us by surprise."

"What are your plans?"

"I'm gonna take my squadron up high and try to keep the sun at our backs, so they won't see us up there. The MIGs they're flying have terrible air-to-air radar, so when we dive on them from twelve o'clock high it'll scare the hell out of 'em."

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"What about the Apaches and Huey gunships?" "I'm gonna spread them out wide, keeping them about five miles off, out of sight. Once the fighters pass, the choppers will deploy in a defensive line between us and the old prop-driven bombers. Since the bombers are much slower than the MIGs, the choppers should be able to handle them before they get close enough to drop their loads."

"Sounds like a good battle plan, Colonel." Holland chuckled over the mike. "As you know, sir, they all sound good. It's the execution that's a bitch." "Right on, Jerry. Good luck up there. Raines out." "Thank you, sir. Good luck to you. Holland out."

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"Jesus, Boss," Beth said, "these Racal suits are hot. I feel like I'm in a sauna."

"It can't be helped, Beth," Ben answered, his voice muffled by the plastic-faced hood of the orange protective suit. "I figure the MIGs are less than ten minutes away, and they'll be followed close behind by the bombers with their cargos of nerve, mustard, and other noxious chemical bombs. If Holland and his air support team doesn't manage to stop them, these suits will be the only things keeping us alive."

Cooper spoke up. "Yeah, Beth. I don't mind a little sweat if it'll keep us from being all curled up in the desert, with expressions of horrible agony on our dead faces."

"OK, OK, you two. Can't a girl complain a little without getting a lecture around here?"

Ben nodded, though the helmet of his suit prevented her from seeing the gesture. "Sure, Beth, complain all you want. Just don't break the seals on your Racal until the last plane has been downed."

Ben had his men spread out in a horizontal line, weaving back and forth across the dry veld grasses so as not to give the hostile air force any groupings to aim for. Some of the vehicles were parked in shallow depres-

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sions on the desert-like plain, but most were out in the open.

The troops, all of whom were wearing either Racals or the older, less effective rubber suits and gas masks, were spread out behind the vehicles, lying on their bellies with weapons trained on the skies. The lucky ones were able to hide underneath the troop carriers, out of the brutal African sun in this driest of all places on earth.

Soon, even the thickness of the Racal helmets couldn't hide the muted roar of the MIGs' jet engines as they raced toward Ben's troops at seven hundred miles an hour.

"Get ready, Coop," Ben said.

Cooper squatted down behind the M60 fifty caliber machine gun mounted on a special pivot on the fender of the big SUV Ben's team was behind.

The other team members jacked back the levers on their Ml6s, shoving shells into the chambers and aiming over the vehicle's roof at the oncoming sounds.

As the line of black dots appeared over the horizon, rushing at them at just over five hundred feet of altitude, a number of slightly larger dots dived out of the sky above them.

"Corrie," Ben said, "tune into Holland's tactical frequency on the radio and put it on a speaker. I want to hear this."

"Right, Boss."

After a moment of her tweaking her dials, Holland's voice could be heard above the roar of his engines. . . .

"Bandits at six o'clock low, men. Dive, dive!"

The jet engines' whine became a scream over the

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speaker as the fighters dove on the unsuspecting MIGs below.

"Johnny," Holland said, his voice as calm as if he were directing his men in a routine training mission, "take the end MIG on the left. Bill, you target the end MIG on the right. I and the rest of the squadron will hit the middle of the pack."

Two of the planes could be seen to dip their wings as they dived, turning to flank the oncoming MIG squadron.

The rest of the Rebel jets headed straight for the center of the group of fighters below. The chatter of Holland's cannons and the explosion of rockets began to roar over the radio, and the two groups of planes merged in the distance.

Holland's planes dove into the squadron of MIGs, scattering them like quail, sending two to the veld in tumbling, rolling balls of fire in the initial attack.

The other MIGs turned wings over and climbed straight up, afterburners blazing as they tried to escape the chattering ruin of the jets' guns and rockets.

"Sammy, Sammy," Holland shouted, "watch out on your six-you've got a bogey on your tail!"

Another voice could be heard. "Not to worry, Sammy. This is Joe Bob, and I've got your bogey."

A line of two Rebel jets with a MIG between them could be seen spiraling off to the side, the lead jet jogging and jerking side-to-side to escape the MIG's machine gun fire.

Seconds later, the rear plane opened up and blew the MIG out of the air.

As the MIG crashed to the ground in flaming wreckage, Sammy's jet dipped its wings in thanks and took off to find another target.

Two more MIGs went down, trailing smoke, and one

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of the Rebel fighters exploded, brought down by a MIG ATA missile.

"Goddamn!" a voice shouted. "The bastards got Marcus!"

The tac-frequency chattered for a few minutes as the pilots warned each other of danger and Holland gave instructions to others about where to attack, occasionally calling out "Good shot," to one or another of his men as they downed more of the MIGs.

"If those MIGs keep using dieir afterburner jets like that," Cooper said as he peered over the sights of his M60, "they aren't going to have enough fuel to get back to their base."

Ben chuckled, thrilled at the sight of the air-to-air combat. "That's the last thing on the pilots' minds right now, Coop. All they're thinking about right now is how to get away from us."

As larger dots appeared over the horizon, flying low as the MIGs had been, Anna pointed her finger. "Uh-oh, looks like the bombers are making their appearance."

Just as she spoke the bombers started to climb, trying to get to an altitude where they could safely drop their bombs without being caught in the explosions.

As they climbed, the bombers were joined by darker, smaller shapes arching in from either side and slightly higher altitudes, flames visible from them-side-mounted Gading guns on the choppers.

"All right!" Ben shouted. "There come Holland's Apache and Huey gunship choppers. They're pouring the lead into the bombers, making them scatter as they climb."

Holland's chopper pilots could be heard communi-

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eating over the radio as they picked their targets and sighted the bombers in with their Gatling guns and M60 machine guns, manned by men strapped in the open cargo doors of the Hueys.

"Without the air support of the MIGs, those old, slow bombers are sitting ducks for the Apaches," Cooper said.

Ben's team, and his troops scattered out behind him, watched in awe as Holland's air force destroyed the MIGs, one by one, and as the Apaches and Hueys blew the bombers out of the sky.

Of the ten bombers in the assault, only one managed to get past the choppers, and it was coming straight over Ben's area.

As the bomber passed overhead, Cooper pulled the trigger on his M60, leading the plane and watching as his tracer bullets curved toward the bomber's belly.

Two large canisters separated from the airplane just before Cooper's tracers locked on and blew one of the plane's engines into scrap metal. The plane went into a slow roll until it was upside down, diving, wings waving as the pilot tried to regain control, until it crashed in a giant fireball several miles beyond Ben's troops.

The canisters exploded when they hit the ground, sending waves of yellowish mustard gas billowing up into the desert winds, to be blown directly toward Ben and his troops.

As the cloud approached them, several of the choppers swooped down and used the prop wash from their rotor blades to disperse the cloud, blowing it to where the twenty knot desert winds could whisk it away.

Ben stood and saluted as the choppers roared past overhead. "I've never seen a braver thing," he said. "Those pilots aren't wearing any protective gear. If that

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gas had gotten into their cockpits, they would all have been killed."

"One thing you can say for the air force-they're not short on cojones," Cooper said, as he, too, waved at the pilots as they passed.

Ben motioned Corrie over to him. "Did you ever manage to get hold of Marsh and warn him of the aircraft headed his way?"

Corrie frowned. "No, sir. I assume something must be wrong with his radio equipment, or they're so deep in the jungle they can't pick up my transmissions. I got no answer at all."

"God help them, then. If Bottger's airplanes catch them by surprise, they could wipe out the entire command. O.K., people."

"We're burning daylight, and I can't wait to stand face-to-face with Bottger in Pretoria."

"I wish I could be there when he finds out his air attack failed miserably," Anna said.

Ben smiled. "So do I, Anna, so do I."

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Colonel Marsh had been careful to avoid the city of Bulawayo, the capital of Zimbabwe, staying to the north and east in the denser jungle areas. Since he was short on air support and his troops were exhausted following the battle with General Schultz, he wanted to keep them well hidden until they had time to rest and regroup.

As he led his troops through the jungles, he mulled over the history of Zimbabwe. There had been both tragedy and drama in the struggle between Europeans and Africans for this land that later came to be known as Zimbabwe.

In the early days, the San-bushmen traveled the country, leaving behind a rich legacy of rock paintings on outcrops all over the land. These hunter gatherers were overwhelmed and defeated by the arrival of the agricultural Bantu peoples, one group of which built the medieval town the rebel forces were approaching, known as Great Zimbabwe. The stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe were at first considered a place of great mystery because European discoverers refused to attribute their creation to Africans.

Marsh thought that was typical European smugness- to think only whites could build great cities-and part

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of the reason people like Bottger could still survive and find followers in this more enlightened age.

The Shona people who built Great Zimbabwe and several other great cities such as Khami, whose ruins lie near Bulawayo, were overcome and defeated by the Matebele tribes, who used the Shona peoples as their slaves.