The Matebele, in turn, were defeated and conquered by the early white settlers who came in search of gold and diamonds-such as Cecil Rhodes from Britain, who later named the country after himself, calling it Rhodesia.

Marsh shook his head as he walked with his men through the dense jungle undergrowth. Such is the vanity of all men, to think they can conquer and not fear being conquered themselves.

Finally, on the outskirts of Great Zimbabwe, with its surrounding granite hills and massive stone monolith sculptures and stone dwelling places, he decided to give his troops a break and camp early, a few hours before dusk.

Captain Bob Warren found the CO. in his tent before dawn of the next day, as more ammunition and arms were being unloaded to the troops from the trucks accompanying their march.

"Our radar is clear," Warren said.

Marsh sat up, pushing his mosquito netting away from his bunk. "Keep the trucks under heavy guard," he said sleepily. "I don't want the local natives to get their hands on any of our materiel. The bastards would probably use it against us."

He hesitated as he rubbed his face, trying to come fully awake. "I haven't heard from General Raines. Some sort of radio problem, I hope."

"Should we wait?"

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"No. We proceed according to plan until we are notified of a change. Ben will get word to us, even if he is maintaining radio silence. Bottger may have broken the code on our scramblers by now."

"I'm emptying several trucks and plan to leave them behind. We're running short of all manner of supplies, including gasoline."

"I know. This keeping to the denser jungle trails has its tactical advantages, but it plays hell on keeping our line of supplies open."

"If we don't get in touch with Raines soon and arrange a rendezvous with the supply planes, we're gonna be in deep shit. And, let's hope they have parts for our Apache gunships and can get them to us soon."

"We almost don't have a chopper left without some sort of problem."

"I'm well aware of the problem, Captain. Just empty the damn trucks and leave the worrying to me. I'm good at it."

"We haven't seen any sign of mercenaries or any New World soldiers. The skies are clear. So maybe you shouldn't worry, Commander."

"Worrying about my soldiers is my job. Get the trucks going and stop trying to make me feel better. No one will rest easy until we are re-supplied and moving again."

Captain Warren wheeled and left the tent. Rows of transport trucks, many of them dented or otherwise damaged by the battles they had fought crossing central and southern Africa, sat near the campsite with drivers waiting.

"I hope Ben wants us to keep moving this direction," he said to himself, swinging his feet off the cot. "It would be a help if he sent word to us about what's going on in the other sectors."

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"Colonel Marsh!"

He heard the voice and peered outside. "Yes, what is it?"

A private, whose face was sweating and flushed, stammered, out of breath from his run to the tent.

"Cap'n Warren said to get you real quick. He says radar picked up lots of planes on their way here."

"Oh shit!" he said. "And here we are out in the open out of the jungle, caught with our pants down."

He followed the boy toward the radar tent, buttoning his pants as he ran, cursing himself for being so foolish as to camp next to this stone city on a hill above the jungle.

"Captain Warren, what've you got?"

"Looks like a squadron of planes headed straight toward us. Luckily, they're flying high enough to be picked up on our radar, or we'd never have seen them coming."

"How long do you figure until they're here?"

"Hour, maybe an hour and a half at the most."

"Damn! That doesn't give us enough time to get back down the hills into the jungle and under cover."

The private, who had followed Marsh into the tent spoke up. "Colonel Marsh? I have an idea."

He whirled around. "Well, private, what is it? Speak up. We don't have a lot of time."

The boy pulled a folded piece of paper from his hip pocket. "Maybe we could take cover in the city. There's a huge amphitheater area surrounded by stone walls over thirty feet high."

Marsh arched an eyebrow. "How do you know about that?"

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I took this brochure from the house where they used to let the tourists in,

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before the war. It had these maps, so I did a little exploring on my own."

Marsh snatched the map from his hands. "If this works, son, you'll get a field promotion to lieutenant. Now where is this place you're talking about?"

The three of them bent over a table where Marsh spread the map out.

The boy pointed. "Right here. It's called the Great Enclosure. It used to be called the House of the Great Woman, and was probably the residence of the queen mother and the royal wives. It's a huge, elliptical structure about as wide as a football field, and it's surrounded by a massive outer wall that's about thirty or thirty-five feet high and fifteen or twenty feet thick."

"Jesus," Marsh said, "the place is huge. This map shows a circumference of over eight hundred feet."

He turned to Warren, speaking rapidly. "Get moving, Captain Get all our troops and as many of the trucks and Apaches inside as you can. The map also shows some high towers inside where we can set up our M60s and other machine guns and a couple of SAMs. We may just make the bastards sorry they attacked, after all!"

Marsh never found out why-headwinds, misdirection, or what-but the aircraft arrived over two hours after Captain Warren picked them up on radar.

By then Marsh's strike force was ready and waiting. All of the trucks and supplies and Apache helicopters were arrayed behind the thirty foot high and seventeen foot thick stone walls, and the many towers within the Great Enclosure bristled with M60s, SAMs, and even some old, fifty caliber, water-cooled machine guns.

As the planes attacked the position, Marsh calmly gave the order to fire, and hundreds of machine guns and Ml6s an even a few .45 automatics opened up on the aircraft.

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The first plane in, a MIG with large, pointed napalm bombs on its wings, was engulfed by thousands of rounds of bullets and burst into flame, disappearing in a giant fireball so hot that virtually no wreckage fell to earth.

"Jesus!" Marsh exclaimed to Captain Warren when he saw the explosion. "That MIG was carrying napalm."

He nodded, his face grim. "I wonder if the others are, too."

His question was answered moments later when two planes made it through the fusillade of bullets to drop cluster bombs of napalm on the enclosure. Because of the height and thickness of the ancient stone walls, the strike force survived the firebombing without injury to men or materiel.

As more and more planes tried to penetrate their defenses without success, until finally the last bomber had been shot down, Marsh looked at Warren. "Captain, find me that private. I want to personally shake his hand and pin his sergeant's stripes on his shirt. He saved all our lives."

Warren shook his head. "Just think, Colonel, if we'd camped in the jungle like we usually do, we'd be barbecue by now."

"You're right, Captain. We would never have survived the napalm without these stone walls."

He leaned over to pat the wall, saying, "Thank you, Queen Mother, for giving us sanctuary in our time of need."

Two hours later, Marsh was resting in his tent while Captain Warren made sure the troops and materiel were ready to march south.

A gruff voice called from just outside the tent flap.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Sergeant Peters, sir. I've got a prisoner for you."

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He walked to the opening and peered out. Sergeant Peters, the lead Scout, was holding a man wearing a tattered New World Order officer's uniform by the shoulder. Peters held a gun to the man's spine.

"What is it, Peters?" he asked.

"I caught a spy," Peters said, marching the officer through camp to the tent.

The man stood up straight, almost clicking his heels as he came to attention. "I am not a spy," he said in a heavily accented voice. "I am Captain Helmut Gruber, pilot in the New World Order Air Force. My serial number is-"

"Why are you bringing him to me?" Marsh asked, interrupting the man as he buckled on his Beretta.

"Because he's got a story to tell. I had to bang him on the head a few times to refresh his memory."

The German officer was bleeding from cuts on his forehead and left cheek.

"I'd say you banged him a little too hard, Sergeant. But go ahead and tell me what he had to say."

Peters pushed the muzzle of his pistol against the man's spine. "Tell the commander what you just told me," he growled. "An' don't leave out no details, or this gun is liable to go off accidental."

The officer was clearly frightened. "I must protest this treatment of a prisoner of war, Commander. It's completely against the Geneva Convention."

"In case you forgot, Heinz, or Helmut, or whatever your name is, your leader Bottger never signed any treaties, certainly not any protecting the rights of prisoners."

"Be that as it may, Colonel, we're both reasonable people, civilized people, and again I must protest-"

"Protest this, Heimi," Peters said as he held the pistol against the officer's head.

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Marsh nodded toward Peters, speaking to the German. "I guess you'd better tell me what Peters wants, Captain, before he blows your brains all over my tent."

When the German officer hesitated Peters slapped the barrel of his gun across the rear of his prisoner's skull. Gruber winced and bent over, clutching the back of his head.

"Speak up!" Peters snapped. "Don't force me to hit you no harder."

Gruber sighed, and began talking. "General Field Marshal Bottger has many cannons and tanks set up in southern Zimbabwe and northern South Africa. They are well hidden, between here and Pretoria, waiting for your arrival just in case you are to escape our air attacks."

"When was all this done?" Marsh asked.

"Recently, in the last few days. Since you defeated Captain Schultz the Field Marshal has been obsessed with killing you," Gruber said as more blood from the new wound to his head trickled down his neck. Peters was good at getting information this way, Marsh remembered.

"Can you show us where these tanks and cannons are set up?" Marsh asked.

"They'll kill me if they see me show you where," he said, stuttering in his awkward use of English.

"We're gonna kill you if you don't show us," Peters warned him.

"I do not want to die," the German begged.

"Just one way to keep from it," Peters continued, after a glance in the colonel's direction. "Start talkin', and start showin' us where them guns are bein' hid."

"I'll show you," the man said softly, touching the blood on his head and shoulders. "I do not want to be a traitor, but I want even less to die."

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"What else has Bottger been up to?" Marsh asked.

"He's been offering a lot of money to the natives, men who have no money, to show him where your battalions are. Some of them, in spite of their dislike for Germans, take the money. They have many hungry children and wives to feed."

"How about you, Fritz-you got any children?" Peters asked.

"es, two, a boy and a girl."

"The only way you're gonna live long enough to see 'em again is to cooperate with us. You show us where them cannons are hid, an' maybe we'll let you live."

The officer nodded quickly, despite the pain it caused when he moved his head. "I'll show you. Just stop hitting me with that pistol."

Marsh held up a hand for Peters to stop pushing the prisoner. "We won't shoot you if you show us where Bottger is putting the guns."

"I'll show you. I'll show you," he said again.

Marsh turned to Peters. "Take him to the mess tent and show him some maps. Have him point out where the gun batteries are hidden. I'm sure they've put antiaircraft guns in place, as well as anti-tank rockets and gun emplacements. Mark them well on the map."

"Why mess with all that when we can just avoid the areas?" Peters asked.

Marsh turned to the flatbed trucks carrying their Apache helicopter gunships. "Because tonight, we'll give our pilots the coordinates and let them drop a few firecrackers on Bottger's new traps."

"We've only got four that can fly, and one is developing some heating problems in this desert country," Peters said as he, too, looked at the trucks bearing the partially dismantled Apache gunships.

"It'll be cooler at night. I'll have our flight com-

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mander get the Apaches ready. Remember, get the exact coordinates as best you can. We don't have many rockets to spare. I hope we can get in touch with General Raines soon for replacements. We can't fight Bottger with bows and arrows."

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Bruno stood in their underground War Room in Pretoria, his hands clasped behind him, listening along with the others while radio transmissions came back from the night attack on Rebel Battalion 12.

A fleet of ten MIGs carrying napalm and nerve gas was only minutes away from the battle zone in the jungles of southern Zimbabwe, where native Intelligence gatherers had reported Malone's battalion was camped.

Unless his forces could halt Colonel Marsh there, nothing would stop him from marching straight across the border into the Republic of South Africa, headed for Pretoria. It was beginning to sound like this was a real possibility, as more grim reports came back to the War Room.

Colonel Walz seemed particularly uncomfortable. His M24s didn't have the range to partake in this attack, and thus the MIGs were his only hope of hitting Marsh at his distant campsite.

His old MIG fighter planes were from a mothball fleet in Austria, some of them barely able to fly, their machine guns in various states of disrepair with a limited supply of ammunition.

When he had acquired them from his Russian friends at the start of the war in Africa, Bruno had only meant

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for the MIGs to serve as a last resort, or for the destruction of easy targets without heavy anti-aircraft artillery.

And, to make matters worse, the Avgas jet fuel for the MIGs had been dangerously low when he ordered Walz to send them after the Rebel strike force. Walz warned that roughly half of the planes might not have enough fuel to make it back to Pretoria.

Bruno had shrugged, indifferent to his air leader's whining. At that point, with Rebel battalions closing in from all sides, he couldn't have cared less for the lives of a few pilots.

The war against the Rebels, one that he was once certain he could win, was going badly. Adding to his building fury, this would be the second time Ben Raines and his ragtag, freedom-spouting armies had defeated him-first driving him out of Europe, and now his hold on Africa was being seriously threatened by these inferior mongrels.

Across the room, Walz almost shouted into the radio, "Come in, Fighter Squadron Six, come in!"

A storm of static followed Walz's orders. Then another voice spoke to the War Room. "Fighter Squadron Six. We can see the signs of the strike force now. We're on final approach. The idiots seem to have made camp out in the open, on a hilltop, not in the jungle, as was reported. The Apache helicopters are still on the ground, not even warming up yet. This should make our attack much easier, Colonel Walz. We'll be launching rockets the minute we have range, then we'll swing in a wide circle and let our payloads of napalm go down."

Bruno was satisfied. The MIGs had arrived. "Tell the squad leader to split. Send one group directly over the Rebel position on the hill at five thousand feet, out of range of their smaller gun batteries. Send the odiers in

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a wide circle to come from the opposite direction. We'll destroy Marsh and his men, and we shall blow their Apache helicopters to pieces while still on the ground."

Walz spoke to the fighter squad leader. "Split your forces. Send half your planes in a circle to come from the north. Keep the others at five thousand feet. Release the bombs. Dump everything you have all over his camp, then strafe the surrounding area with machine guns to kill any troops that try to get away on foot. Fires from the napalm will be your cover."

"Yes, sir. We're dividing now." A hesitation. "Scorpion group climb to five thousand. Release your pay-loads on anything you see moving. Black Widow group follow me to the north in a wide circle. Then hit them with everything you've got."

Bruno leaned back against a desk behind him, watching two giant radar screens. "At last," he said savagely, feeling the adrenaline rush through his arms and legs. "Now we'll see how well this bastard can take a pounding."

He smiled, with no humor in his eyes. "Welcome to South Africa, you asshole. I hope your drawers are the first to catch on fire. A napalm bath is what you've needed all along. Goodbye, Colonel. You gave us a good show, but it's over now."

General Conreid looked relieved. "With Marsh out of the way we can concentrate our tanks and infantry on Ben Raines to the north and west."

Colonel Walz still seemed doubtful, rubbing his chin while watching the radar screens. "We haven't gotten rid of Marsh yet, General."

General Ligon came to Conreid's defense. "This will be over very soon, Colonel. Napalm is quite thorough when it comes to destroying a target. These Rebels won't escape our napalm fires, and even if some of them

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do the nerve gas will drop them like flies. I predict there will be no survivors."

No survivors, Bruno thought. A twenty-year dream was about to come true. With Ben Raines and his Rebels out of the way, no force on earth could stand between Bruno and global domination, a triumph rising out of the ashes of a total annihilation of the Tri-States military machine.

In less than five minutes the radio crackled again. "Beta Squadron. Captain Gruber has been shot down. There are three of us left. We are turning back at once."

Bruno glared at Colonel Walz. "Tell them their orders are to stay and fight. I'll have them executed by firing squad if they disobey a direct order from me!"

Walz's hand trembled slightly holding the microphone. "Go back. Engage the enemy. These are orders from General Field Marshal Bottger himself. Your MIGs are only minutes from destroying Marsh and his battalion. Do not give up now, for I am sure the tide will turn quickly in our favor."

"But Colonel, they are blasting us out of the sky. Marsh's forces are camped in some sort of stone city on a hilltop, as Captain Gruber said. They are behind large rock walls which our machine gun bullets can't penetrate. Their anti-aircraft batteries are in massive stone towers above the city, and are unapproachable."

Walz felt as if he were going crazy. All his beautiful plans were coming to nothing, all because of a few cowardly pilots. "Drop your napalm, you idiots! Burn them out!"

"Colonel," the voice continued, and even over the radio Walz could hear the scorn in it. "Haven't you been listening to me? Marsh's forces are in a stone city, walled in like a fortress. Stone does not burn, Colonel. Repeat, stone does not burn!"

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"Do not talk back to me, Captain! I order you to go back and finish the fight, to the last man, if need be!"

"But sir, I repeat, we can't find anything to shoot at, our napalm has no effect, and the Rebel ground batteries are chewing us to pieces every time we pass over the stone city."

"Turn and fight!" Walz bellowed. "You are soldiers of The New World Order. Where is your courage, your commitment to our great cause?"

"We all have plenty of commitment, sir, but our aircraft is not equal to theirs. This was a trap. We were lured into a crossfire between their ground-to-air rocket launchers and their cannons. They were waiting for us."

General Ligon turned to Bruno. "Tell them to turn back, General Field Marshal, while we still have some MIGs left. If the assault has failed, we can still use them as a final defense against Raines and his 501 Batt when they get to the border of South Africa."

Walz, sweat pouring from his forehead, nodded, showing his agreement. "Yes, General Field Marshal. I still have Captain Kohl in reserve with his HIND M24s, and they can be ready to attack at first light tomorrow."

Bruno nodded, for the idea sounded good enough, and even if the last M24 pilots were lost ultimate victory would be theirs at last. "Give the order, Colonel Walz. Radio our pilots to take evasive action and come back to Pretoria, away from Marsh's camp."

He turned his back on his advisors to hide his disappointment in the night's raid, and walked to his desk.

"Once Captain Kohl's HINDs attack Marsh tomorrow morning, then General Conreid's ground forces can begin to advance. We'll wipe out the strike force, down to the last man."

Walz spoke to the pilots. "Move away from the stone

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city at low altitude. Come back to Pretoria, and you can live to fight another day."

There was no answer. Nothing but static filled the underground bunker.

Walz scowled. "Answer me, damn you! Come in, anyone."

As silence continued, interspersed with bursts of meaningless static, Bruno shook his head and started toward his private chambers.

He spoke over his shoulder. "I shall see you gentlemen in the morning, after breakfast, when you can apprise me of the results of Captain Kohl's attack."

He stopped just before leaving the room. "And gentlemen, you had better have something positive to say to me."

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Corrie called out, "Boss, I've finally managed to bump Colonel Marsh. He's on the line now waiting to talk to you."

"Great," Ben said as he reached for the mike. "Raines here. How goes it?"

"It goes as well as can be expected in this god-dammed hothouse the Africans call a jungle."

"We've been trying to reach you for the past twenty-four hours. Trouble with your radio?"

He heard a low chuckle over the airwaves. "Yeah. A friggin' lizard had crawled into our long-range radio transceiver and shorted out a couple of resistors. Once our radio tech found the problem, it was relatively easy to fix."

"Good. We wanted to warn you that our Scouts had seen some aircraft headed your way. Did you make contact yet?"

"Yes, sir. And we survived more through luck than skill. They were carrying napalm, and if we'd been in the jungle instead of in the stone city of Great Zimbabwe, we'd have had our gooses cooked by now."

"Lots of great military minds have said luck plays a greater part in the outcome of war than military planning. Guess they were right, huh?"

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"Yes, sir. Speaking of luck, we apprehended a prisoner who gave us some good information. It seems there are quite a few Minsk tanks up ahead of your position, waiting to ambush your battalion."

Ben pursed his lips, a puzzled expression on his face. "That's strange. Our scout planes haven't picked up any signs of tanks ahead. Are you sure of your source?"

"Yes, sir. He says the tanks are dug into bunkers and camouflaged very well to blend into the desert sand. I'll give you the exact coordinates and let your men check it out again."

"OK, that'll be a big help. I'll send Captain Holland and his PUFFs to take a look. How about you? Do you need anything?"

"Just about everything you can imagine, General. We're down to less than two days fuel supplies, low on ammunition, and our Apaches have about enough fuel for one more mission. We need anything you can send."

"I'll radio supply and have a couple of C13Os airdrop you everything you need within four or five hours. That good enough?"

"Excellent, General. I'll give you those coordinates now, and also give you ours for the airdrop. Good luck with those tanks."

"Thanks, Marsh. What's your next move?"

"We also found out about some anti-aircraft batteries and cannons up ahead of us. We're gonna send out a little sortie with the Apaches and see if we can't draw those good ole boys back here into a little surprise I've got cooked up for 'em."

Once Ben had the coordinates he needed, he had Cor-rie radio supply headquarters and tell them to get the supplies Marsh needed to him, soonest. Then he called

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a meeting with Colonel Holland to discuss Marsh's information concerning tanks up ahead of his 501.

While Ben was meeting with Colonel Holland, Marsh sent the leader of his air support team, Captain Sparks, on his night mission.

Captain Dana Sparks kept his Apache flying at less than three hundred feet above the ground. Two more Apaches flanked him on the right, and one on the left.

Reading his instruments, checking for the coordinates the prisoner had given them, he realized they were very close to the cannon batteries. He expected to see New World choppers on his scope any second now. The thumping of the Apaches' rotors would quickly alert the enemy to their approach, even if they had managed to stay low enough to avoid their radar. At times, even the most modern mechanized warfare came down to basics, the quickest eye, the keenest ear.

With four rocket tubes mounted on each Apache, Dana and his men could deliver one hell of a damaging blow to New World gun emplacements before they were finished with this mission. And then things would start to get hot in the night skies over southern Zimbabwe.

Dana knew they could count on determined pursuit by a fleet of HINDs, which was exactly what Colonel Marsh wanted-to draw as many enemy helicopter gun-ships toward their anti-aircraft batteries as possible.

"Target on my HUD, Red Leader" a voice said into Dana's helmet earphones. "Somebody's coming up. At least six blips. Now I have two more."

"Go!" Dana ordered, twisting more forward thrust out of the Apache's stick-mounted throttle. Every man in the squadron had been assigned specific targets.

The hammering of rotors grew louder. Dana put the

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nose of the ship down, flying as low as he dared at his speed. Now he had a target on his HUD. He primed the rocket launch tubes and tried for a fix. A bleeping noise came faster, until a single electronic tone announced a target fix. He fired one rocket tube and watched its vapor trail shoot away from the ship. The rocket guidance system, built into the nose cone, would do the rest.

More rockets left the gunships to Dana's right and left, a flash of crimson followed by a trail of white marking the passage of each deadly Spider across dark terrain below.

A brilliant burst of fire and smoke lit up the night in front of Dana's Apache, followed by the thunder of a terrific explosion.

"Bingo!" Dana cried into the radio. "A direct hit on some sort of munitions stores."

Another blast erupted from the ground, fingers of flame shooting skyward, turning the undergrowth into a wall of fire and smoke.

"Gotcha!" a pilot's voice crackled into Dana's headset. "I don't know what the hell I hit, but it sure does make one real pretty blaze!"

The patter of distant machine gun fire with tracers leading through the darkness came straight for Dana's helicopter squadron from the forest.

"Go down!" Dana said. "We're still too damn high."

But as he said this he saw the tracers pass high over the cockpit of his chopper. The enemy gunners were shooting at shadows.

A volcano of flame shot upward from another spot in the jungle where the rain forest ended abruptly near a dried up lake, the start of the desert. Dana saw and heard one of the Spiders score a hit, in a place he hadn't expected to find the enemy.

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"Nice shootin'!" he exclaimed. "Whoever fired that baby gets a gold star by his name."

More tracer bullets and machine gun fire sizzled over the tops of the low-flying Apaches. Dana, as squad leader, decided it was time to empty all tubes and get the hell out of there before a ship went down. They had damn few to waste.

"Fire all rockets!" he shouted. "Let the heat sensors pick a target for us. We're gettin' the hell outta here. Those shots are gettin' closer and closer."

Spider rockets whooshed away from the Apaches almost in unison. Dana felt his airship sway when the ignited rocket fuel pushed them out of the launchers.

Following a precision drill his team had practiced since he'd formed the squad, the Apaches peeled off one at a time at very low altitude, swinging back toward battalion headquarters.

"Looks like we all made it," a voice said over the radio. "Don't know what the hell we hit, but it sure made a big bang."

"We've got gunships behind us," another pilot warned. "We can't count on this picnic being over 'til we get back to camp and set down."

Dana wasn't all that worried about the enemy aircraft. They were low to the ground, hard to detect on older targeting mechanisms like those found in the HINDs.

His main worry was fuel. His gauge showed barely enough to get back to base and safety, and flying this low used fuel at a prodigious rate.

He tapped on the gauge, hoping the needle would move. When it didn't, he silently crossed his fingers and began to whistle a tune to make the time pass faster.

He prayed he and his squad had enough gas left to lead the New World pilots over the hidden gun batteries Colonel Marsh had positioned for a crossfire.

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He couldn't wait to see the HINDs come falling out of the sky like so many raindrops.

Marsh is one hell of a commander, he thought. He was born with a military mind.

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Captain Tristan Kohl had four blips on his radar screen, all flying very low over tropical forest, heading north back toward where that infamous Colonel Marsh was reported to be camped-where his boyhood friend and flight training companion, Helmut Gruber, had been reported lost earlier that day during the napalm attack. God only knew what had happened to him and the others on that mission. None of the planes had made it back to camp to report on the sortie.

Flying at the front of the formation, he spoke into his radio as he gripped the M24's stick with the throttle wide open.

"Beta Leader Five. I have them on my screen. Four airships. Choppers, probably Apaches. Activate rocket ignition when you can confirm a hit"

''They are too low, Beta Five!" a voice replied from another M24 HIND flying outer wing in their V-shaped formation. "I have no fix. Repeat. I have no fix."

In this tropical country the heat from the ground, even at night, was often enough to throw off the heat-seekers of their rockets if the target aircraft were low to the ground, and these crazy Americans were flying so low their landing wheels must be hitting treetops.

Kohl knew the Apaches were capable of quick ma-

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neuvers and dangerously low flight, if their pilots knew what they were doing. It was hard to bring one down from the air with the older Soviet rockets they had on board the M24s-small missiles with an out of date guidance system relying solely on heat which often misfired at a vapor trail or followed the wash of a turbine engine instead of the flying ship itself, allowing smart pilots to make sharp turns to avoid their rockets.

While the Soviet-made rockets were excellent for ATG-air-to-ground firing-they stacked up poorly against the more advanced Rebel rockets with their computerized guidance systems.

Most frustrating of all, the Apaches somehow made false echoes on The New World's best screens, causing rockets or cannon fire to go wide.

"Let them have a taste of machine gun fire," Kohl commanded, flipping switches on his twin-mount M60 machine guns. These big guns required visual targeting, a difficult task while flying an M24 in hot pursuit, and the Russian brand M60s frequently jammed due to rust in this humid tropical climate.

Colonel Walz knew about the problems aboard the HINDs, and still he ordered them into battle with the Apaches as if pilots under his command and their HINDs were expendable. And as the war lengthened it seemed no one in the high command cared about New World army disadvantages, or about badly needed repairs to planes and helicopters.

Many of the air wars they fought now were like suicide missions. Too many good pilots had been killed since the Rebel armies came to Africa, and too many of Tristan Kohl's friends would never see Germany again because of Walz and his lack of maintenance protocols.

The chatter of machine gun fire came from a ship to Kohl's left as they sped over the dark forest below.

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Kohl's altimeter read less than a thousand feet, and the Apaches appeared to be hundreds of feet lower, making them far more difficult targets for machine guns, cannons, or rockets.

He admired the nerve of the Rebel pilots for flying so low, and at night. He knew, as good a flyer as he was, he would never have the courage to attempt maneuvers such as the Rebels performed routinely.

But with twelve gunships in his squadron, Kohl felt the sheer weight of numbers would give them the advantage tonight. Silently, he prayed he wouldn't be one of the M24s shot down during this engagement, yet he had to stay out in front of the formation to show his men he had courage in battle. He could not lag behind . . . his pride would not allow it.

"One of the blips has turned around!" It was Kruger's voice over the radio. "It is coming back toward us___"

"I don't see it!" another pilot yelled. "Give me a mark! I can't pick it up on my screen!"

Kohl recognized the terror in Gustav Cline's voice despite heavy static through his headset, a common failing of HINDs when the humidity was high which caused all manner of electrical quirks in the guidance systems and in their radios.

"Something has been fired! I can see its burn trace. Go down!" Kohl said, feeling his palms grow wet with sweat on the controls.

"It's a rocket!"

"Evade, evade now!"

Several members of the squad sent their M24s down to low altitudes to escape the Rebel missile. Kohl took a quick glance at an M24 when it nose-dived out of formation, swooping down toward the jungle.

"I'm getting sometitiing on my warning system-"

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Lieutenant Kruger scarcely got the words out of his mouth before his chopper exploded, sending an aftershock across the rest of the flight formation.

Kohl watched Kruger's helicopter gunship go down in a ball of flames, coming apart as it spiraled toward the earth, leaving a plume of smoke and flames in its wake.

"Fire! Fire! I've got a target!"

Cline fired one of his rockets. A finger of orange flame marked its passage away from his chopper.

Kohl watched the rocket shoot away from Cline's gun-ship with his heart in his throat. David Kruger was already among the dead from this helicopter engagement, and the fight had only begun. He wondered how many more of his comrades would die.

"I'm hit!" a crackling voice shouted. "One of my rotor blades is-" His cry ended with a terrific explosion off to Kohl's right.

A HIND burst into flames, flipping nose-over-tail amid an inferno. Oddly, the helicopter's machine guns were firing as it went crashing into the treetops below. Then one of its unlaunched rockets detonated, blasting trees out of the ground in a rapidly spreading circle.

Kohl took a deep breath. He saw an Apache making straight for his squad's formation-a suicidal move for a helicopter pilot at this altitude.

Kohl fixed his targeting sights on the Apache and pulled a trigger on a rocket. The swish of exploding, burning rocket fuel made a faint sound above the staccato of his rotor. A fiery vapor trail left one launching tube. Then the Apache gunship suddenly disappeared on his screen. It was not possible, and yet he had seen the blip vanish himself.

"Where is it?" he cried just as the rocket he launched went sailing into a black hole in the rain forest.

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"It is gone! I don't see it!" someone exclaimed. "A big chopper cannot simply vanish like that."

Kohl's rocket ignited a stand of trees, brightening the night sky briefly. He had missed the Apache completely and it did not make any sense-how could an airship be there at one moment, and then disappear entirely in a matter of seconds?

It was not logical, he thought. Did these Rebels have some kind of new weapon, making their aircraft invisible? Or were their pilots simply that good at the controls?

"I'm hit!" a slurred voice screamed from Kohl's headset as one of the choppers to his left disintegrated in flames, twisting out of the sky in looping arcs. The HIND went out of sight, exploding upon impact, setting more trees aflame.

A split second later Kohl saw a flash of light off to his right. A HIND was struck by a rocket and it went down like a flaming ball of heavy metal, dropping straight down into the forest with a bang.

/ am going to die tonight, Kohl thought. How is this possible, against only four enemy helicopters ?

"Beta Leader!" a voice said. "We are flying over batteries of anti-aircraft guns. They are shooting rockets up at us, and cannons are spitting lead all over the jungle below."

Kohl looked beneath his guriship. The trees were alive with flashing lights, a twinkling, staccato pattern of death, and the distant boom of cannons could be heard above the whine of his turbines and the hammering of his rotors through the air.

Tracer bullets illuminated the pathways of cannon and machine gun shells, lighting up the night sky like the fireworks displays during Oktoberfest back home.

"I am hit. Going down!"

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Kohl did not recognize the pilot's voice. His squad was taking a terrible beating ... it was almost as if they had been lured into a nest of ground-to-air rocket launchers and anti-aircraft gun batteries.

Something struck the underbelly of his chopper, and a pain began in his left foot so intense that Kohl unconsciously let out a yell, leaving him gasping for air. His boot went flying past his face, slamming against the roof of his gunship cabin.

The chopper tilted crazily, driven out of control by the impact from a cannon round.

Blood sprayed the cockpit, and Kohl noticed in the dim lights behind the control panel that his entire left foot was missing, blown off just above his ankle by a Rebel cannon. He seemed strangely detached from his circumstances, almost as if it were all happening in a dream.

Perhaps it is a dream, he thought dazedly, hoping against hope this wasn't really happening to him.

Air pressure fell in the cabin and a map, clipped to a visor above his head, was sucked out of a hole in the M24's steel-plated floor. An involuntary scream came from his throat.

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, fighting back the pain racing up his leg. And now he had no foot with which to control the rudder or the speed of the tail rotor.

He felt the chopper begin what felt like an auto-rotating ground-spin although his altimeter said he was still three hundred feet in the air. His mind would not function properly, due to the pain and his massive blood loss. His vision became blurred, and he couldn't focus his eyes.

He rubbed at his face, seeing another M24 break into pieces far to his right, blanketed by flames and smoke.

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Kohl's radio crackled, but there was no voice from the pilot being shot out of the skies, only static as his last message never made it to his squadron leader.

The drum of anti-aircraft guns became a rhythm from the dark forest, pounding, blasting away as Kohl's HIND began a slow descent he could not control.

"Son of a-!" Another pilot attempted a radio message in the last seconds of his life, before his chopper was hit by a hail of Rebel cannon fire.

Kohl's life flashed before him-his childhood in Holland, and his enlistment in the New Federation Army headed by a blond giant named Bruno Bottger. Bottger had made so many promises to his new recruits, promises of a better world and an easier life for all who followed him.

Then came the collapse of his Nazi-style regime, after a bitter war across Europe. Everyone believed General Field Marshal Bruno Bottger was dead. Then he had surfaced a few years later with his New World Order, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, proclaiming he had millions of followers and a better equipped army to fight against Democratic tyranny.

Tristan Kohl had wanted to believe in this New World Order, as so many others had.

His M24 circled closer to the earth, out of control because he had no foot to guide it. Sheets of pain ran up his thigh to his belly, and he felt nauseated.

"Swing toward the east!" a voice cried, garbled through the radio by the sounds of cannon fire and machine guns.

Yes, Kohl thought. Turn this helicopter toward the east, toward the jungle where the Rebels have no guns.

Using the stump where his foot should have been, he placed bare bone and bleeding flesh on a rudder pedal and twisted the throttle.

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When his exposed, shattered bone pressed down, stabilizing the rudder, the pain almost caused him to black out.

The turbines responded with a roar, lifting the HIND just in the nick of time. Kohl ignored the white-hot pain in his stump of a leg to keep pressure on the rudder pedal.

He saw darkness underneath him, with treetops moving and waving in the wind like waves of an ocean marking the spot where beaches touched the sea. Only, there was no beach within a thousand miles, only thick jungle and rain forest.

With all his might he kept his concentration on the task at hand, getting his damaged airship out of the range of the anti-aircraft batteries before a cannon, or a rocket, shot him down.

His mind wandered to the report he was given concerning the commander of this Rebel strike force.

What was his name? The churning of chopper blades above him prevented him from remembering, for the moment. Was it Malone? Marsh?

"I am going down!" someone shrieked into his headphones, a voice heightened by hysteria he could not recognize.

/ will not go down, Kohl promised himself. I will stay in the air, no matter what.

An M24 to his right blew apart, pieces flying, chunks of metal sucked into the downdraft of his rotor blades.

"Oh no!" he gasped, feeling his gunship shudder in midair when something struck the tip of a swirling blade.

He fought the controls with all his strength, but with a nagging sensation that he was losing consciousness due to the blood loss from his stump. The HIND would not obey his commands when he tried to steady it.

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"Goddamn you, Bottger!" he snarled, "making us fly these goddamn Russian antiques! Screw you and this stupid war! We can't win it in these flying buckets. . . ."

It all went beyond his control when a fragment of a torn M24 sheared off one of his rotor blades. Tristan Kohl's HIND flipped over, flying upside down until it was driven into the trees below, in the jungles of southern Zimbabwe.

The explosion destroyed three Bantu tribesmens' straw and bamboo huts, and started a fire that threatened the entire village.

Tristan Kohl was killed instantly. He would never again drink beer and dance with the pretty liebfrau at Oktoberfest, or watch the colorful fireworks of the national holiday.

He lost his life to Bruno Bottger's dream of worldwide conquest.

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Bruno was summoned from his private office by Rudolf. "You are needed in the War Room, sir," Rudolf said.

"Is something wrong?" Bruno asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Is it morning already?"

"No, sir. It's around midnight."

Bruno sat up in his bed, eyes wide, staring suspiciously at his aide. "What has happened?"

"Captain Kohl and his M24 squadron were attacked at the anti-aircraft batteries we set up on the border with Zimbabwe by four Apache helicopters from Marsh's Battalion 12."

Bruno's face lit up with anticipation. "Good, the bastard finally outsmarted himself. If I'm not mistaken, Captain Kohl has twelve M24s under his command. Did he completely wipe out the strike force squadron?"

Rudolf Hessner hesitated. He knew full well the danger a messenger placed himself in when delivering bad news, especially to a leader as unstable as Bottger. "Not exactly, Herr General Field Marshal."

"Well, what happened, Rudolf? Surely four Apaches couldn't defeat twelve M24s, led by our best air commander. Out with it, man!"

Again Rudolf hesitated before answering. "I'm afraid

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Captain Kohl took off after the Apaches, and was led north into the jungles of Zimbabwe, where Marsh had set a trap. He had anti-aircraft batteries set up in the jungle, and annihilated Kohl's command to the last man and last M24."

"What?" Bruno bellowed, leaping out of bed to grab Rudolf by his shirt front.

"I'm afraid Colonel Walz's M24s, as well as his MIGs, have failed you, sir. Walz says they have all been downed by rockets or GTA missiles. He asked to speak to you immediately."

"All of them? All twelve of the HINDs?"

"I did not ask him for a number, sir. He said his helicopters ran into some kind of unexpected difficulty."

Bruno released Rudolf's shirt and began to pace around his bedroom, muttering to himself for a moment.

Rudolf was afraid at first that the news had caused his leader to lose his mind, until Bruno turned and stared at him with eyes glittering with hate.

He pointed his finger at Rudolf, as if aiming a gun. "If Walz has failed us I want him executed, Rudolf."

"When, sir?"

"I will give you a signal. Then, you take him down to the lower level. Tell him you have something to show him. And get rid of him."

Bruno began to pull his dress uniform on, still talking over his shoulder at Rudolf. "His incompetence has cost us countless lives and almost half our flying machines. He is an idiot, and I was a fool to have trusted him."

"Shall I incinerate his body?"

"Of course. As far as the others on my staff are concerned, he deserted us. We'll say we don't know where he is, and brand him a traitor to the cause. You can say you saw him leaving in a jeep after you talked to him."

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"Yes, sir. You give me the signal, and I'll make certain it is done in accord with your wishes."

Bruno walked over to Rudolf as he was about to leave through the door.

"You are a trusted associate, Rudolf Hessner, and you will be rewarded when The New World Order is in place."

"I am grateful for your trust, Herr Bottger. It is not misplaced. I would give my life for the cause, and for you, as you must know by now."

"Of course. Your loyalty has never been in question, and you have performed valuable services for me. It will not be forgotten."

"I understand, Herr Bottger. I fear you have entrusted men with no courage to lead your men in battle. Colonel Walz has always been suspect."

"As is General Conreid."

Rudolf nodded. "General Ligon believes in his germ warfare weapons. However, he has trusted others to deliver them. When the time is right, I will also get rid of him."

"You have a keen understanding of what is needed, my trusted friend."

"What is needed is good military leadership."

Bruno scowled, his eyes boring into Rudolfs. "And you do not feel I have given my best tactical knowledge to our effort?"

"You have, Herr Bottger. It is the others who have failed you."

"Alas, this is true. I chose the men I thought would lead us to victory."

"It would seem they are leading us into a series of defeats against the Rebels."

"Let us not forget that these Rebels are quite clever when it comes to tactics."

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"Surely, Herr Bottger, they are not more clever than someone like you?"

"Of course not."

"Then the solution seems to be simple. Get rid of the leaders who are costing you glorious victories."

"You are right. I have entrusted the wrong men with too much responsibility."

Rudolf gave him a weak smile. "In particular, I believe it was wrong to trust Colonel Walz with our precious aircraft. He has no vision, no plan, only a frontal attack directed at enemy positions."

"Yes. A schoolchild could have done exactly the same thing in our behalf."

"Should I kill him now?"

"Wait, until I find out the extent of our losses. However, I doubt the outcome will suit me. If Walz has sent our last remaining MIGs and M24s into a losing battle, he must be ... eliminated."

"I will do it. Just give me the killing sign, and I will take him down to the lower level."

"It is where he belongs. We have lost so many brave pilots who were willing to give their lives for The New World Order. They followed the orders of a fool without any fighting skills or knowledge of military strategy."

"So it would seem, Herr Bottger."

Bruno reached for the doorknob. "Just in case things are far worse than we believe, have Alexis prepare my helicopter for takeoff."

"Where would you have him take us?"

"Merely tell him to fill all tanks with fuel. I will not retreat or abandon our compound until it is clear we have no other choice."

"Alexis will be informed."

Bruno strode out into the concrete corridor leading to the War Room. A voice inside his head warned that

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incompetent men had again cost him the chance to smash the Tri-States Army, and Ben Raines.

He should have been more careful, picking the men who would command his air and ground forces in Africa. It was all too clear that he should have seen to every detail himself.

Well, he promised himself, he would not make that mistake again.

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Ben and his team were leading his 501 Batt forward, even as Colonel Holland and his squadron of jets were forging ahead, seeking out the Minsk tanks at the coordinates given to them by Marsh.

As they drove, leading his column of troop carriers and tanks and armored cars, Ben had Corrie put Holland's tac-frequency on the radio speaker so they could listen to the air battle as it raged. . . .

Holland's voice came on above the static, squeaky and tinny on the small speakers of the radio.

"Johnny, you see anything yet?"

"Not yet, Cap'n. But I'm flying at ten hundred feet. If you want us to pick anything out of that desert down there we're gonna have to get on the deck and fly low and slow."

"Roger that, Johnny," Holland answered.

"Billy, you and Joe Bob follow Johnny and me down to the deck. Keep your eyes peeled, men, 'cause I have a feelin' we're gonna draw some fire from the krauts down there."

"Roger, Cap'n," Billy answered.

"We got your six, Cap'n," Joe Bob said in his soft Texas drawl. "If those boys stick their heads up, I'll be on 'em like a tick on a coon hound."

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"Ten-four, Joe Bob. Johnny, let's drop on down and say howdy to the Germans."

"Gotcha, Boss," Johnny answered. "I'm on your tail, so don't hit the brakes unless you want some company in your cockpit."

The whine of the big Whitney-Pratt engines climbed in pitch over the radio as the two lead planes dived to five hundred feet, flying over the coordinates of the hidden tank group to try to draw their fire so they would reveal their position.

The rattle of the tanks' 30 caliber machine guns could clearly be heard, even over the radio as the planes flew above the tanks.

Several loud metallic thuds were heard, and Johnny's voice broke the radio silence, sounding strangely calm. "I'm hit, Cap'n. Took six thirty cals through my cockpit plexiglass."

"Johnny, you OK?" Holland asked, sounding worried.

"Sure, Boss. A little plastic in my cheek and a bit of blood on my flight suit. Otherwise, I'm flying strong, the bird is sailing okay . . . seem to have missed the engines."

"I got 'em in my sights, Cap'n. Look out, you sand lizards, Joe Bob is deliverin' the mail!" Joe Bob yelled as his engines screamed and he dove, twin Gatling guns chattering their song of death.

Holland called out, "Let's kick these pigs and get some air under us, Johnny. We'll make a high circle and come back at 'em with the Vulcans."

"Ten-four, Boss. I got the pedal to the metal," Johnny answered as he tilted the nose of his plane at the sky and pushed the throttle forward.

"On your six, Joe Bob, there's a Minsk to your left at

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ten o'clock. You take him, and I'll get the armored personnel carrier at three o'clock."

"Roger that," Joe Bob drawled in his laconic manner.

Thirty seconds later, he gave a whoop. "Whoa, Nelly! Take that and scratch one Minsk. Did you boys see the size of that fireball? Hell, he must've been loaded to the gills with HE shells, probably some phosphorus too!"

"Good shootin', Joe Bob," Holland said, his engines screaming in the background. "Now quit posing and get your butt out of the way. I've got some mail of my own to deliver ... air mail!"

The roar of Holland's cannons could be heard, deeper and louder than the chatter of his machine guns, as he dived on the tanks below.

A double explosion came over the radio, just as Billy yelled, "Hot damn, Boss! You got two with that strafe. Good shootin'."

"Get outta my way, boys," Johnny said, "I'm gonna stand this bitch on her nose and make some sausage down there."

As his engines whined, Billy said, "Pull out to the left when you're done makin' barbecue, Johnny, 'cause I'm in your wake and I'll pull out to the right."

"Ten~four, Billy boy," Johnny said before the droning roar of his cannon drowned out his words.

Two more explosions could be heard as the two PUFFs completed their dives and pulled out, spreading apart like the petals of a desert blooming flower, leaving fireballs and black, greasy smoke billowing behind them.

Holland said, "Good work, men. You can cook for me anytime. I count six tanks burning or destroyed, two more with treads off and disabled, and three armored personnel carriers blown back to Germany."

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"Hey, boss man, looks like the rest of the tanks are goin' home. Guess they don't appreciate SUSA hospitality."

"You want us to follow them and finish the job, Cap'n?" Joe Bob asked.

After a moment, Holland answered, "Naw, let 'em run back to papa with their tails between their legs. I'm gettin' low on fuel, and I don't see a gas station on this particular block. Guess we'd better head for home."

"I sure hate to leave this party just when it's gettin' interestin'," Joe Bob said, disappointment in his tone.

"There'll be more parties, gentlemen, that I can promise you. Now, pull in behind me and let's boogie."

Ben smiled at the chatter of the men under his command. He liked to work with men who enjoyed their jobs.

It was about fifteen minutes later when the PUFF squadron buzzed low over Ben's column of troops and tanks.

He had Cooper fire off a green flare, signaling a job well done, and the planes tipped their wings as they passed.

After the planes passed, Ben had Corrie radio the other squadrons that they were going full out for Pretoria, and the devil take the hindmost.

He looked over his shoulder as Cooper sped over the bumpy veld grasslands as fast as their SUV could go. "Okay, team, heads up. There are bound to be stragglers from Bottger's New World Army up ahead, and there may even be ambushes by forces small enough to have been missed by the fly-bys, so keep a full metal jacket in your weapons, and keep 'em locked and loaded for trouble."

"It's about time we see some action," Anna grum-

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bled. "I'm getting bored with all the other people having all the fun lately."

Jersey shook her head. "I'll never understand you, girl. Killing isn't fun . . . well, almost never, that is. It's serious business, and not to be taken lightly."

"Oh, I'm not taking it lightly, Jersey. It's just that riding around this barren wasteland gets old after awhile. It's action I want, not necessarily killing."

Beth looked up from the travel brochure she was reading. "It looks like we'll be crossing the border into Botswana before long."

Ben said, "Tell us about it, Beth. What's Botswana like, as opposed to Namibia?"

"It says here Botswana is larger than France in area, but held only a million and a half inhabitants at the time of the war."

Cooper snorted. "Probably a hell of a lot less now, that's for sure."

"It also says Botswana has Africa's largest population of elephants, between thirty and eighty thousand, and with the wilderness havens of the Okavango Delta, the Chobe National Park, the Moremi Game Reserve, and the Kalahari Desert, it was known as the ultimate safari destination before the war ended all that."

"Tell us more about the Kalahari, Beth. What are we going to be facing heading southeast toward Pretoria?"

She turned the page and read to herself for a moment before continuing. "The Kalahari had its origin as a great inland basin, which filled with sands blown in over the ages as the ancient lavas that once covered southern Africa slowly eroded. Kalahari sands now extend from Congo and Angola right down to the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, and across the continent from Namibia to western Zimbabwe. Kalahari sands underlie more than eighty percent of Botswana.

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Although often called a desert, most of it is grassland with scattered bush and trees, except in the extreme southwest. Water is so scarce that the native word for rain and the name for the country's currency are the same-pula."

"So, we won't have high dunes and massive sandpits to contend with on our journey?" Ben asked, leaning over the back of his seat to look at Beth.

"No, sir. Not according to this map. It looks as if we'll pass south of Ghanzi and the central Kalahari National Park, if we head straight southeast toward Tshane."

Ben turned back around. "That's where we're going."

As Cooper pushed the big SUV to its limit, Ben's team slowly pulled away from the column of tanks and personnel carriers following them.

After about an hour of steady travel across the flat bushland, scattering occasional wildlife, Cooper began to slow the vehicle. The change in speed brought Ben, who had been lightly dozing in the front seat, fully awake.

He rubbed his eyes, turning his head back and forth to see what caused Cooper to slow down.

"What's going on, Coop? We got trouble?"

Cooper shook his head. "I don't know, Boss. Caught something out of the corner of my eye a minute ago . . . maybe I'm just spooked, but I got a funny feeling something out there ain't right."

"Keep a sharp eye. Coop thinks something's-" Ben started to say, when he was interrupted by Jersey's shout from the back seat.

"There, over to the left ... I saw a reflection-"

Suddenly all hell broke loose. Two hundred yards off to their left a camouflage netting was thrown back from over a shallow gully in the sand.

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An M60 machine gun was pushed up on the lip of the gully on its tripod and immediately began to stutter and fire. The heads of several soldiers popped up at the same time, pointing AK47s and firing as fast as they could.

Hammer blows of 60 caliber bullets rocked the SUV, cracking the front windshield, punching holes in the left front fender and down the side of the vehicle.

Smaller dents puckered the thick metal but didn't penetrate as the AK47s found the range.

"Ambush!" Ben shouted, as Cooper jerked the steering wheel to the right and floored the accelerator, slamming the big wagon around in a sliding turn.

Both left side wheels blew out as the M60 slugs tore holes in their rubber, and the SUV lost balance and rolled three times, finally coming to rest partially on its side, its roof toward the enemy, engine smoking and ticking after it stalled.

Inside the SUV, Ben braced himself against the side-wall and popped his seatbelt, almost falling into Cooper's lap when it let go.

"Everybody okay?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder into the rear seats.

Anna stammered, "I think so."

"I'm all right," Jersey answered.

"I'm good to go, but the radio's had it ... smashed to pieces," Corrie piped up.

When Beth didn't answer, Ben leaned back over the seat to see if he could locate her in the jumbled equipment and supplies that were thrown all over the rear of the vehicle.

Beth was lying on her side with her eyes closed, blood streaming from her nose, and her left arm was cocked at an impossible angle, apparently broken just above the wrist.

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"Shit!" Ben shouted. "Beth's down! Jersey, see if you can check her out."

More slugs pounded into the roof of the SUV, which was made of reinforced steel to protect against strafing by airplanes and helicopters. Even the large 60 caliber bullets couldn't penetrate the double thickness of the top of the wagon.

Ben tried to open the door, which wouldn't budge. He lay back and kicked out with both feet at the same time, finally popping it open.

He scrambled out of the door, reaching back inside to help Cooper, who grabbed his squad automatic weapon as he tumbled out of the door and fell to the ground.

While Ben pulled the rear door open, Cooper crawled to peek around the front fenders of the SUV, bringing his SAW to his shoulder when he saw enemy soldiers crawling out of the ditch two hundred yards away and running toward them.

He sighted down the barrel, braced himself against the recoil, and pulled his trigger on the machine gun. Dozens of slugs exploded out of the barrel, kicking it up and to the right as it slammed back into his shoulder, rocking him back on his heels as he knelt in the hot sand of the veld.

Four of the attacking troops went down immediately, screaming in pain as the bullets tore into them, spinning them around to fall backward, dead before they hit the ground.

Within seconds the remaining troops had scrambled back under cover of the ditch, but kept up a steady stream of fire with their AK47s.

Ben managed to get Jersey, Corrie, and Anna out of the wagon, then crawled to look over Cooper's shoulder.

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"What's our situation, Coop?"

"Looks like about twenty or twenty-five men about two hundred yards away, hunkered down in that dry wash over there. They've got good cover, and at least one M60 along with automatic small arms, AKs, I think from the sound of them."

Ben looked back over his shoulder. "Damn, we've separated ourselves from the rest of our troops and materiel. They're not even in sight yet over the horizon, which means they're at least several miles back."

"Boss, the radio's had it. I can't even get static."

"How about our combat mikes?"

"Still operational, but Michaels doesn't answer, so he must be out of range."

"Anna," Ben said, "How is Beth?"

Anna was bent over the floorboard of the vehicle, her head and upper body inside as she worked to free Beth from all the debris covering her.

"Unconscious, Ben. Probably only a mild concussion, since her pulse is strong and her breathing is steady. Broken left wrist, and maybe some internal injuries that I can't determine yet."

"Damn! See if you can get her out of there, while I try to figure some way out of this mess."

Jersey crawled to the rear of the wagon and stuck her Ml6 around the corner and fired several short bursts into the soldiers across the sand, just to let them know she was there.

"Looks like a Mexican standoff, Chief," she called, firing another burst. "If we can keep them from attacking, the cavalry should be here before too long."

"Yeah," Ben agreed, easing his head up to look over the top of the vehicle. "Michaels can't be too far behind us."

From across the way a deep rumbling vibration be-

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gan, and black diesel smoke could be seen to rise in a dark cloud.

"Uh-oh," Cooper said. "I don't like the sound of that ... I think they may have a tank over there, or at least some big vehicles, maybe an APC."

As the camouflage net moved, a sand and brown colored APC began to pull out of the ditch, a soldier in the open top behind a post-mounted 50 caliber machine gun.

He opened up with the fifty, sending sparks and chunks of metal flying off the SUV as he raked the roof and fenders with bullets.

Jersey cursed as she pulled her head back just as the tire she was behind began to disintegrate under the impact of hundreds of slugs.

She smirked, calling out, "Hey, Anna, come on down here. We got some of that action you've been hankering for all day."

Anna nodded. "Yeah. Jersey, do me a favor, will you? Next time I say I'm bored, just kick me in the butt and tell me to shut up, okay?"

Jersey laughed. "You got it, girl."

"Ben, I don't mean to rush you or anything, but what the hell are we going to do now? Our Ml6s and my SAW aren't going to make a dent in that APC, and it looks like the troops over there are lining up to use it for cover as it heads toward us."

"Do we have any LAWs or TOW-Dragon anti-tank missiles in the SUV?"

"Not a one," Corrie replied. "We had to take them out when we packed the Racal suits in. There wasn't room for them with all the germ and chemical warfare gear."

"Wait a minute, Boss," Jersey said. "I have an M203 grenade launcher in there somewhere. Maybe we could

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use it to lob some HE or phosphorous grenades over there. The range is about a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards."

"Crawl in there and see if you can find it, Jersey. The grenades won't put the APC out of commission, but maybe it'll slow it down enough until we can get some help from Michaels."

Jersey handed her CAR to Corrie, who took her place behind the rear of the SUV and started to fire intermittently at the APC as it climbed out of the ditch, knocking two soldiers to the dirt who were walking behind it.

Ben stuck his CAR over the top of the wagon and began to fire his Thunder Lizard from the shoulder, making the man in the turret duck for cover as his rounds pinged off the armored steel of the big vehicle.

Moments later Jersey jumped down to the ground, the M203 in one hand and a flare gun in the other. She handed both to Ben, along with a satchel of grenades and flares.

Ben took the flares and loaded a red one in the pistol, aimed it skyward, and let it go with a loud bang. The flare arched into the sky, then exploded in a red fireball high in the sky.

"Maybe that'll let John know we need some help up here," Ben said, as he bent to affix the M203 to a spare M-16 from the wagon.

He crawled up on top of the SUV, ignoring the shells ricocheting around him as he elevated his barrel at forty-five degrees to get the maximum range and fired a fragmentation grenade at the APC.

It exploded twenty yards short of the vehicle, sending a geyser of sand and dirt into the air, but causing no damage to the personnel carrier.

As the APC and its following troops pulled closer, the

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grenades began to land on or very close to the vehicle, but still were not strong enough to slow its advance or to do any real damage.

Finally, Ben was down to two fragmentation grenades and one white phosphorous grenade.

He shook his head. "Looks like we're down to the bottom of the barrel, team. Any ideas?"

Cooper thought for a moment, then said, "Not a one. . . ."

After he heard it, Ben grinned. "Hell, Coop, I've got one."

Ben quickly reloaded the M203 with a white phosphorous grenade.

This time, the white phosphorous exploded just above the APC, sending flaming sheets of burning phosphorous into the interior of the APC through the turret opening on top.

Two soldiers scrambled out of the APC, the phosphorous clinging to their skins and clothing, which were burning brightly as the screaming men ran for a few yards and then fell to the ground, their flesh bubbling and melting under the white-hot heat of the chemical.

Ben and Cooper and Jersey and Corrie then dashed toward the remaining troops, their CARs blazing and chattering as they poured hundreds of rounds into the enemy troops.

Corrie took a superficial wound to the left thigh, making her stumble, but not knocking her to the ground.

Jersey's kevlar helmet was hit dead center by a round, snapping her head back and dazing her, causing her to stand still halfway to the APC and look around, as if she didn't know where she was.

The battle was over in less than two minutes, with all the enemy troops either killed, wounded, or surrendering to the small band of warriors.

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Half an hour later, when a Huey gunship helicopter arrived with John Michaels riding in the rear, manning the M60 machine gun, Ben and his team were sitting in the shade of their overturned SUV, with eight prisoners standing before them, hands on heads.

Michaels jumped down from the chopper and ran over to Ben.

"We saw your flare and called in the Huey, but it looks like we were a bit slow."

Ben grinned. "Yeah, my team has everything under control now."

Then he grew serious. "However, we do have some minor injuries. Beth has a broken left wrist and nose, Corrie has a flesh wound to the thigh, and Jersey is still a bit addled. Could you airlift us back to the main force so Doc Chase can take a look at them?"

"But there's no need to hurry," Cooper added, looking over at Jersey, who was sitting with a dazed look still on her face. "This is the first time since I've known her she isn't talking at full tilt. I'm kind'a enjoying the silence."

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Bruno's defenses were crumbling. Ben Raines's 501 brigade had finally been joined near the city of Tshane in southern Botswana by Ike McGowen and his 502 brigade.

Together they were marching through Botswana, and had broken through a perimeter of tanks and howitzers, destroying most of the big 105 millimeter New World artillery bunkered north and east of Pretoria.

Marsh's strike force and two more armored Rebel units were pushing across the southern savannas and miombo woodlands and massive granite domes, or dwalas, of lower Zimbabwe, heading straight for Johannesburg virtually untouched and unopposed.

There was silence in the underground bunker's War Room while Bruno and two of his top commanders listened to frantic radio reports from all fronts.

Air support for Bruno's embattled troops was virtually nonexistent now, with only a few HIND attack helicopter gunships still airworthy, and most of his MIG fighter planes had been downed by rocket fire or grounded due to mechanical problems and lack of parts to repair the ancient engines.

"I fear the end is near," General Conreid said. "There is nothing we can do to stop them."

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General Ligon nodded his silent agreement as an artillery brigade commander north of Pretoria called in his damage report.

"The men are deserting! Running for their lives! Shells are falling all around us!"

"Cowards," Bruno hissed, his jaw clenched. "No one can win a war with an army of cowards."

"They are being shelled to pieces," Conreid said, "and in places it has come down to hand-to-hand combat. Our ammunition supply trucks bound for Petersburg were hit from the air. We lost everything. They control the skies completely now in the northern sectors. There is nothing we can do. Before long our antiaircraft gunners and rocket launchers here at the compound will be shooting at their fighter planes and B17 bombers. I'm sure the Rebels know where we are by now, after tracking our radar and radio signals. They'll be trying to blast us out. General Raines will have us completely surrounded, with our backs to the sea."

Bruno's rage had reached its full boiling point. "We had every opportunity to whip these modey Rebels and their mongrel gene pools of inferior races. Field commanders made poor choices. They lacked conviction that this war could be won. Fear has been our worst enemy, gendemen, fear of a mere mortal calling himself a general. Ben Raines is no better and no smarter than anyone else. He is, at best, fearless. And when he faced indecisive cowards on the battlefield he won engagements easily."

General Ligon turned away from a map of South Africa, where pins denoted bunkers and artillery and tanks guarding the outer reaches of The New World Order compound in Pretoria.

"If I may say so, General Field Marshal, most of our

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men have fought with great courage. The Rebels have an uncanny knack for knowing our weaknesses, and they came to Africa well prepared and with the best military equipment, most of it salvaged from the old United States. We have battled them with what were primarily inferior Soviet-made aircraft and rockets. The Southern United States of America has devoted technical resources to developing and maintaining modern weaponry, and General Raines has access to whatever he needs in the way of arms and supplies from SUSA-"

General Conreid interrupted. "I agree completely with General Ligon. However, it goes beyond that, in my opinion. These Rebel soldiers have a will to win which I fear may be lacking in our troops. It is a state of mind they possess, not just better weapons. They believe strongly in their so-called manifesto-granting so many liberties, punishment of the most severe kind for those who break their laws. While I believe it is a concept meant for desperate, hungry people, it seems to have instilled the Rebels with more than determination. They see themselves as a part of something larger than a country or a region. Calling it a unified spirit is far too simple. It defies all logic how committed they are to their political cause and beliefs. They have marched through our best offensive and defensive efforts with scarcely a pause, hiding when we have the advantage, reappearing where we least expect them to be, striking our flank at its weakest spots. I'm not sure what we could have done differently that might have stopped them. Even our anthrax spores were useless against them, no doubt due to inoculation, and they were apparently prepared for our gas deployment. They marched right through everything we dropped on them."

Bruno passed a meaningful glance to Rudolf Hessner, near the sealed door into the War Room. In addition

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to his Steyer-Hans 9mm automatic pistol Rudolf always carried a lightweight Valmet Oy M62 assault rifle with a telescoping stock, dangling from a strap over his shoulder, a Finnish gun he preferred over an AK47, due to its smaller size and tremendous firepower.

Bruno turned his attention back to General Conreid and General Ligon. Colonel Walz had already been dispatched to the downstairs incinerator immediately after the failure of the air strike against Battalion 12 in southern Namibia.

Two low-ranking radio operators sat at consoles against a far wall, changing frequencies to bring in reports from New World armies. A third officer monitored radar screens suspended from the ceiling, watching blips from various radar installations all across South Africa. None of the communications officers were armed.

"Are the two of you suggesting we surrender to Raines?" Bruno asked, doing his best to disguise the anger in his voice when he spoke to Ligon and Conreid.

General Conreid took his gaze from one radar screen. "It would seem the best choice, General Field Marshal. In point of fact, we are putting up very litde resistance now."

Bruno fixed General Ligon with an icy stare. "And do you agree, General Ligon?"

"What other course to we have? Our soldiers are deserting the front. We have no aircraft to speak of with which to launch a meaningful counterstrike. Colonel Walz has disappeared, apparently deserting us, and thus we have no one to direct what few planes and helicopters we have left. The colonel hasn't been seen for several hours, and I am certain he has made his escape from South Africa by now."

"Walz was an idiot!" Bruno snapped. "Most of our losses are a direct result of his military incompetence."

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For a fleeting moment Bruno considered telling Li-gon and Conreid what had been done with Walz-that he was now merely a pile of ashes, along with the Gestapo's Dorfmann and his driver.

Bruno decided not to waste his breath, or any more valuable time. Alexis and three carefully selected assassins from his Praetorian Guard, men who had been with him since the days of the failed New Federation in Europe, had his American-made Huey chopper fueled and ready for a quick escape to Madagascar.

It was loaded with gold bullion, and Bruno planned to fly low over the Indian Ocean and across the Mozambique Channel to avoid being picked up by Rebel radar. In Madagascar he had another cache of gold and silver and an additional, hand-picked squad of bodyguards waiting for him.

There, backed by new allies forming in western China with millions in gold behind them, Bruno Bottger would try again to wipe Ben Raines and his freedom-spouting legions from the face of the earth.

He spoke to both generals again. "Someone has betrayed us to the Rebels, someone very close to me. From the beginning of die Rebels' campaign in Africa they have known where we are, the location of our headquarters in Pretoria. There is a traitor in our midst. I can come to no other conclusion."

Ligon spread his hands. "Surely you cannot believe it is one of us?"

Bruno did not answer him, waiting, casting a glance toward General Conreid, his eyes hooded and suspicious, as if he suspected everyone on his staff.

"Me?" Conreid asked. "You actually believe I could betray our cause, a cause I have risked my very life for?" His voice changed pitch, climbing as he almost whined in his attempt to convince Bruno of his innocence.

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"Tell me it is not so, Herr General Field Marshal. I gave up a comfortable life in New Germany to come with you to Africa. How can you think I am a traitor to The New World Order?"

Bruno sighed, briefly enjoying the discomfort his highest commanders felt. "I do not know the traitor's identity," he said after a lengthy pause.

"Perhaps it was Walz?" Ligon suggested. "He deserted us at a time when we needed him. Surely this points the finger of blame at him-"

"Yes," Conreid said, nodding emphatically. "It must have been Colonel Walz who gave the Rebels the location of our headquarters."

"I don't diink so," Bruno replied.

"Then you must believe it is one of us," Ligon said after a furtive look in Conreid's direction. "But as you said, you do not have this traitor's identity."

"The solution is really quite simple," Bruno told them as he took a step backward-to be out of the way when Rudolf began firing. "The real traitor will not admit to what he has done, and as we are rapidly losing this battle to Raines and his damn Rebel soldiers there isn't time to ferret out the culprit. And in point of fact, it does not really matter."

"It doesn't matter who betrayed us?" Ligon asked. "I find that preposterous."

General Conreid stiffened his spine. "I can only assure you I have never given any information to our enemies. I swear this to you."

Bruno looked at Rudolf and closed his right fist, the signal Rudolf had been waiting for.

Rudolf raised his Valmet assault rifle, pulling the stock tubing from its telescoped position. Then he squeezed the trigger, aiming for General Ligon first.

The thunder of an automatic stream of bullets filled

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the War Room. General ligon was slammed against the wall, with blood spouting from a dozen holes in his chest and thorax. His eyes bulged in their sockets while empty brass cartridge casings fell to the concrete floor, making a hollow sound.

With scarcely a pause, Rudolf unleashed a spray of slugs into the face and chest of General Conreid. After terrified glances back over their shoulders, the radio and radar operators, made a dive for the floor.

Conreid went into a curious back-flip over a desk littered with maps. The roar of Rudolfs machine gun was deafening in the confines of the sealed room.

General Conreid toppled over onto the floor with pieces of skin dangling from his bloody, mangled face, and neck. He fell with a soft plop in a pool of his own blood. Conreid groaned once, and then lay still.

Bruno inclined his head toward the cowering communications officers.

"Kill them, too," he whispered, making a turn for the door with his Steyer in his fist.

A staccato of gunfire blasted back and forth across a tiny space beneath die radios and radar screens. Three men were turned into bloody pulp in a matter of seconds by a hail of hot lead. Only one of diem remained alive long enough to scream as he was dying.

Rudolf reloaded his machine gun. "Alexis and the others are waiting at the heliport," he said. "We should go now."

"Is the way to the bunker's exit clear and safe?" Bruno asked while checking die cartridges in his Steyer.

"Yes, Field Marshal. Gunter killed the guards on the other side of the door with his knife before I came in, but there are guards on the upper level who will have heard the shooting. Gunter will be waiting for them on the stairwell if diey try to climb down here. We will kill

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the other guards as soon as we reach the top. Your personal APC is outside. Jules is behind the wheel."

"Let's go," Bruno said. He stood back so Rudolf could open the door bolts, wondering if this might be a better time to get rid of Rudolf by placing a bullet in the rear of his skull. His aide and bodyguard was the only one left who knew about his Jewish mother, having overheard what Herr Dorfmann said when he came to Pretoria to inform him of the statement the old woman had given him. But at the moment, Bruno reasoned, Rudolf might be more valuable to him alive. There could be more shooting between the underground War Room and the heliport, and Rudolf was an excellent marksman.

Rudolf, with his back to Bruno, tripped back the heavy bolts and peered into the hallway with his machine gun leveled.

"All is clear," Rudolf said softly. "Follow me and I will lead the way to the stairwell, where Gunter is waiting for us."

Again, Bruno considered killing Rudolf, for Gunter would believe him if Bruno told him a shot from Ligon or Conreid had ended Rudolfs life. It was better to wait, he decided, following his loyal bodyguard out into the hall. He would have ample opportunity to kill Rudolf Hessner, after he was no longer needed for protection.

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Ben Raines was enjoying his reunion with his oldest friend, Ike McGowen, commander of the 502 Batt and Ben's second in command of the Tri-States forces.

When Ike had finally caught up with Ben's 501 Batt, Ben had greeted him with, "I don't believe it, Ike. You actually look like you've managed to gain weight on this campaign."

Ben fingered the skintight jacket. "I guess we're gonna have to have a tailor ride with the 502 to keep letting out your uniforms if you're gonna keep this up."

Ike shrugged. "Wouldn't be a bad idea, Ben."

Ben laughed, then asked Ike to tell him about how his campaign had progressed.

Ike pulled a candy bar out of his pocket and sat in a chair in Ben's CP tent. "Wasn't too bad, over all. Had a bit of trouble in the northern part, which is wet, very flat, and covered with rain forests-which as you know are virtually inaccessible, due to the lack of roads. Moreover, I had to keep a close watch on the troops because of the elephants, lowland gorillas, and especially the friggin' monkeys, which must have numbered in the thousands. The little bastards kept us awake twenty-four hours a day with their screeching and howling."

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He paused. "Do you have anything to drink around here? This chocolate is making me thirsty."

Ben instructed Cooper to see if he could round up some coffee.

Ike continued, "Once we got to the central plateau it was smooth sailing. The area is a succession of rolling, green plateaus. About the only problems we had were in crossing the many rivers that cut deep gorges in the soft dirt of the hills and valleys. As you know, the roads in the central part of the Congo are among the best in Africa, and much better dian in Zaire, the old Belgian Congo. What's more, the altitude of fifteen hundred to twenty-four hundred feet keeps the climate almost bearable."

"How about the natives? Did you face much resistance?"

"Some, especially from the pygmies. They were a constant menace, and I even had a few casualties from blow-gun darts."

He laughed, making his belly bounce. "Can you imagine, in this day and age, a soldier getting a purple heart for a wound from a blowgun?"

"Did you have any trouble with the other tribes?"

"Yeah. The Kongo and Teke tribes were quite ferocious, and seemed to be particularly loyal to Bottger and his ideas. The Vili and M'Bochi, on the other hand, were peaceful as could be."

As Cooper arrived with coffee and served it all around, Ben said, "I'm glad to have you widi me again, old pal. We're getting closer to kicking Bottger's butt out of Africa, and I wanted you to be in on the finish."

Ike nodded. "Me, too, Ben. I hear from Intelligence there are some AA batteries and artillery battalions up ahead that are in need of a good housecleaning."

"Yep." Ben walked to a map on the wall of his tent

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and pointed his finger at the area just above the border to South Africa, in southern Botswana. "Bottger has his last line of defense set up in a ring, running east and west along the South African border, just about fifty klicks from his headquarters in Pretoria." "Have the flyboys softened 'em up for us?" Ben smiled. "Yeah. Colonel Holland just got back from his second mission over the area. He said there's practically no air support left in The New World Order Army. He and his men pounded the batteries and AA pretty good. He said it looked to him as if quite a few of the troops were abandoning their positions and deserting to the south."

"I'll bet that's pissin' old Bottger off plenty bad." "I hope so," Ben said. "And soon as you finish your coffee, we'll mount up and go see what we can do about clearin' 'em out once and for all."

Ike upended his cup, drank it down in one gulp, belched, then said, "Let's ride, partner!"

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The Huey sat inside a concrete bunker which hid it from view at ground level. The bunker was encircled by an electric fence. A multicolored camouflage net covered the aircraft when it was not in use.

As Jules drove Bruno's specially equipped APC toward the bunker, with Gunter manning a .50 caliber mounted machine gun on the roof of the armored vehicle, everyone could hear the whine of the Huey's turbines. Alexis was ready to take off the moment all were on board the craft.

Jules stopped at a guarded gate in the fence. A pair of Bruno's Praetorian Guardsmen blocked the entrance with AK47s at the ready.

The chopper would hold twelve men and a heavy pay-load of gold bullion, already secured in unmarked cargo boxes in the center of the Huey's belly. The gold represented all the wealth in South Africa, taken from bank vaults in Johannesburg and other cities when Bruno's armies invaded helpless countries across the African continent after he was driven out of Europe by Raines and his Rebels.

Bruno considered the treasure the fruits of war, a generous reward waiting to be taken in Africa after his

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humbling defeat in Europe when the New Federation collapsed.

Rudolf stepped out first when the APC ground to a halt. He gave their surroundings a quick inspection.

"All clear," he said, and Bruno was next to depart from the vehicle, casting a worried look at the sky.

If any Rebel recon aircraft had flown over, even at a very high altitude, a squadron of Raines's Apaches might be waiting for them to lift off and head for the ocean, turning them away from Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope, where Bruno had initially planned to leave a false trail on Rebel radar before Alexis swung toward Madagascar.

Bruno, Gunter, Jules, and Rudolf hurried past the guards to the narrow stairway down to the heliport, a pad just large enough to allow the Huey's blades to turn.

Alexis was the best chopper pilot in the service of New World armies. If anyone could make it away from Pretoria without being picked up on Rebel radar, it was Alexis.

The two Guardsmen followed them down to the aircraft. A side cargo door was open, ready for everyone to board. Alexis sat at the controls while Bruno climbed in to take the co-pilot's seat.

"How does it look?" Bruno asked as the others entered the Huey. He buckled his seat harness, waiting for Alexis to give him an answer.

"We will make it," Alexis replied, twisting the throttle, adjusting the rotor pitch. "There have been a few flyovers, very high, probably recon planes getting a fix on our compound for their bombers. We won't be here by the time anything heavy shows up."

"Hold on a moment," Bruno said to Alexis. He slipped his Steyer pistol out of its holster and beckoned

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the two heliport guardsmen over to the side door of the chopper.

The two men walked up, both saluting sharply.

"Yes, General Field Marshal. Is there something else you want us to do?" the senior of the two asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Yes, son. I'm afraid you have one more sacrifice to make for your Fuhrer. You have to die to protect my secret."

As the men's faces registered bewilderment Bruno aimed the Steyer and shot them both in the face, blowing them backward to land sprawled awkwardly in death, the surprise still showing on their ruined faces.

Alexis turned a horrified glance on his leader. "Why did you do that?" he yelled over the noise of the Huey's engines.

"No one must know of my escape, or that I am still alive," Bruno yelled back. "It is imperative that I be given time to cement our relationship with the Chinese, without interference or being hounded by Raines's men searching the world over for me."

He holstered his Steyer and pointed out the front plexiglass windshield of the Huey. "Abandon the plan to fly toward Cape Town," Bruno said. "I fear we've run out of time to leave a false trail. Fly directly for the coast. Stay as low as you can. We have to take a few chances now."

Alexis nodded and yelled over his shoulder to the others in the Huey. "Lift off!"

The Huey roared, its powerful engines lifting it slowly out of the tight space enclosing the chopper pad. As the craft rose above ground level, a whirlwind of sand and dust scattered from the sides of the open-topped bunker.

At barely a hundred feet off the ground, Alexis swung the Huey toward the eastern coastline, flying so close

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to rooftops within the city of Pretoria that even Bruno felt a trace of concern.

To take his mind off the danger while flying so near the ground he glanced back to the cargo area, where ten locked iron boxes held his millions in newly-smelted gold bars. It would be more than enough, combined with capital from his new allies banding together in China, to purchase more tanks and planes and choppers from the world's black markets, and the Chinese had promised him millions of soldiers to fight for his New World Order.

A new beginning lay before him, more full of power than ever, on another continent. Ben Raines had won the battle in Africa, but the war to control the globe had just begun. Bruno would be forced into hiding for a time in Madagascar, planning his move to China while he acquired more war materiel. But when he resurfaced, it would be as a far more formidable foe with a larger, better-equipped army.

He turned to Rudolf and pulled him close so the others wouldn't overhear. "Did you arrange the bodies as I ordered?"

"Yes, sir," Rudolf answered. "I dressed one in your spare uniform and put your dog tags on his neck. The other I put in one of my uniforms, with my dog tags on him. Then I poured gasoline on the bodies and ignited them."

Bruno nodded. "Good. Then with any luck Raines will think I committed suicide, or was killed by mutinous officers before they deserted. If he accepts our little charade at face value, as I suspect he will since none of the guards in the bunker have been left alive to tell him different, he will not be looking for us to surface somewhere else. That should make my ... rehabilitation with the Chinese that much easier."

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He relaxed back against his seatbelt and peered out the window at the scenery passing below.

The residential section of Pretoria passed underneath the ship in a blur as Alexis gave the Huey full throttle. Propwash bent small trees and bushes below them, blowing shingles off some of the roofs. The throbbing hammer of the Huey's turbine-driven blades filled the cockpit and cargo space, making it impossible to talk until Bruno put on a helmet with a headset connected to one worn by Alexis.

"Are you picking up any aircraft on radar?" Bruno asked as he inspected the scope himself.

"Nothing yet, General Field Marshal. We are still too low for their radar. What we have to watch for is an enemy plane or helicopter above us. If they spot us from the air, we could be shot down. This Huey is no match for an Apache gunship, and if they have rockets, we may have a problem. An Apache is much faster, and I'm sure you know we can't outrun a heat-seeking rocket equipped with a computer guidance system."

"How can we avoid them?" Bruno asked, seeing his escape plan in potentially grave danger.

"We will fly right against the coast, up to the Mozambique Channel. If we stay low on the beaches, their radar can't pick us up from an inland station." The pilot grinned. "At times we will be flying so close to the ground you'll be able to reach out and pick buttercups."

"Just don't make any mistakes," Bruno said. "Our lives, and the hope for a New World Order, are in your hands now."

Alexis frowned as they flew toward the distant skyline of a small coastal town on the Indian Ocean named Maputo, little more than a fishing village since the wars had begun destroying its local economy.

"I was told Colonel Walz has deserted us. I find it so

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hard to believe. He was a dedicated soldier, as far as I knew. It wouldn't be like him to abandon us."

"He may have been a traitor, Alexis. I have been given bits of information that tend to show he may have cooperated with Ben Raines and his Rebels."

"Colonel Walz?"

"Some men crack under pressure," Bruno said. "He cost us a great number of aircraft and human lives. He may have been, as you say, a dedicated soldier. However, he lacked the skills to win battles against the Tri-State's aircraft. And I have good reason to suspect he betrayed us, although I won't reveal my sources to you now."

Bruno caught Rudolf's eye and winked. "All in good time perhaps, but a far more immediate task is to reach our hidden compound in Madagascar. The fate of our cause rests with you, Alexis."

"I will not fail you," he promised, crossing a semi-arid part of the southern Transvaal with the Indian Ocean in sight, spread across the horizon.

Unable to bear looking at the ground as it passed seemingly just feet below the landing gear of the Huey, Bruno watched the clear skies above them, hoping they would not see any enemy aircraft. He let his mind roam ahead of them and their journey across the Mozambique Channel.

He closed his eyes and remembered a stretch of quiet, tropical rain forest on the east coast of Madagascar where a very old, stone-walled villa was hidden deep in the jungles-on a failed coffee plantation abandoned half a century ago by an Englishman who contracted malaria. The villa was a perfect spot to begin planning for the future of The New World Order. All he had to do was get there.

They flew across sleepy Maputo, attracting hundreds of stares from curious local fisherman and farmers. Rows

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of old wooden wharfs passed beneath the Huey, and then Alexis turned sharply north to hug the forested coastline, dropping down to less than a hundred feet above empty beaches and coral shoals, well out of sight from anyone, unless there happened to be a pilot of another aircraft above them.

Bruno checked his watch. They were hours away from the safety of Madagascar, and in a powerful but heavily loaded, slow-flying Huey they would make easy targets for Rebel fighters or Apache gunships.

While it sounded impossible, what Bruno and his precious shipment of gold needed was to be able to hide in the sky in a giant green helicopter. If anyone could pull it off, it was Alexis.

The ocean far below was calm. As the helicopter and its valuable cargo got farther across the Mozambique Channel, Bruno finally allowed himself to relax.

"We'll make it now," he said.

Alexis was watching his radar screen, staring at it with a frown on his face.

"Some sort of aircraft is following us, General Field Marshal. It has been back there for several minutes. It's too small to be much more than a recon plane."

Bruno's gaze was suddenly glued to the scope. "I see it, a tiny blip on the screen."

"It isn't a jet or it would be closing on us, and it does not mark like a chopper. My guess is that it's some type of propeller-driven recon plane who picked us up when we left the coast."

"They may only be interested in our destination."

"Perhaps. If that is the case we can fool them once we reach land in Madagascar. I can land some place on the west coast, one of the islands. There will be no place

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for the airplane to land, and very soon it will run low on fuel. When this craft disappears to find fuel, we'll climb back up and fly across Madagascar in the dark of night without lights. Madagascar is a very large island. Once this plane loses us, it will never find us again."

"Good," Bruno said, although a voice inside his head warned it could be dangerous for Ben Raines to know he had headed in the direction of Madagascar. His charade with the burned bodies would all be for naught. Somehow, Raines found a way to pick up Bruno's trail no matter where on the planet he went.

He let his thoughts return to the matter of Rudolf Hessner and what should be done about him. Rudolf was now the only man left who knew about Bruno's Jewish mother, having overheard what Dorfmann said. But who better to send to Berlin to find the key to Dorfmann's bank box? Rudolf was very thorough. He would find the key and the old woman's sworn statement, no matter how long it took. And the beauty of the plan was that the idiot was slavishly loyal, to him and The New World Order, and thus could be trusted to do exactly as he was told.

There will be plenty of time to execute him after he finds the paper, Bruno thought. With all his gold to protect he needed someone he could trust while they were in Madagascar. It did seem odd that he would consider killing a man he trusted so completely. However, it was much too dangerous to leave anyone alive who knew the truth about his mother.

"The blip is gone," Alexis said, ending Bruno's ruminations regarding Rudolf. "The airplane has turned back. It was probably low on fuel."

"Excellent," Bruno remarked, settling back in his seat with a cold smile on his face. "Ben Raines can't be sure Madagascar was our final destination, if the recon plane

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reports our direction to him. They may believe Madagascar was only a fuel stop for us, once they discover some of us have escaped from Pretoria ahead of their assault. Hell, Raines won't even be sure who was on board, and if my trick with the bodies works, he may believe we were only some deserting generals making their escape. Once we land at the villa we'll cover this ship with netting and move plants into the clearing Sergei made for our landing pad. No one will spot the chopper or the clearing from the air."

"I hope the clearing is large enough," Alexis said. "This big bird needs plenty of space. We could lose the tip of a blade coming in."

"I gave Sergei the measurements," Bruno replied. "I assure you everything will be in order when we get there."

He hoped every detail had been attended to, and that there had been no mistake with the landing area measurements. He did know that if Sergei had made an error it would be the last the man ever made. The penalty would be swift and violent death.

"It will be dark. When we get close I will radio to have the landing lights turned on."

"Sergei confirmed all preparations had been made. The marker lights are in place, and he awaits our coded signal to turn them on."

"Good," Alexis grunted, returning his attention to the Huey's controls.

333

Ben Raines, his CAR still smoking, stood in the middle of a street with his team, looking ahead over numerous bodies of the last of the troops known as Bottger's Praetorian Guard.

Ben shook his head, turning as Ike McGowen walked up, his M16 dangling from a strap around his shoulders.

"Ike, I can't believe the fanaticism of Bottger's people. We had them boxed in, completely surrounded, and offered to let them surrender."

Ike smiled bitterly. "They'd have none of it, I suppose?"

"No, they fought and died to the last man. And for what? To protect some raving lunatic with megaloma-niacal dreams of world conquest."

He shook his head again. "What a waste-so many good soldiers giving their lives for that monster."

"Have you found his headquarters yet?" Ike asked, looking around the small city square where the Praetorian Guard had made their last stand.

Ben pointed straight ahead, to an opening in a small, square one story building made of reinforced concrete. "I suspect it's in there. That's the place the soldiers were guarding so faithfully."

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Ike said, "Then let's go flush the bastard rat out of his hole."

Ben readied his CAR and nodded to his team to proceed.

Cooper and Jersey were the first to enter, dashing in and jumping immediately to the side with their backs to the wall, ready for more fanatical guards to open fire.

There was only silence, and the stench of burned flesh and gasoline permeating the dank air of the underground bunker.

Ben stood at the head of the stairs leading down beneath the ground.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Ike. You don't suppose he pulled a Hitler and committed suicide, do you?"

Ike shook his head. "Not a chance. The man was too egotistical to ever kill himself. If he's dead, trust me, it will have been by someone else's hand, not his own."

As Ben started down the stairs Jersey caught Cooper's eye, and they jumped in front of him and led the way into the underground lair.

On the way they found at least ten men, all with machine gun bullet riddled bodies, lying where they had fallen, most shot in the back while at their stations.

"Jesus," Jersey whispered. "Someone's taken out the leader's staff, and evidently they weren't expecting it when it came."

Finally, as they approached the main room of the bunker, the stench of burning flesh became so strong they could barely stand it.

They entered the room, noticing the large, scorched Nazi flag on a far wall and the massive oak desk with top secret stamped files, most burned beyond reading, lying on the desktop.

"This must be the war room, Bottger's main resi-

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dence," Ike said, wrinkling his nose at the all pervasive odor.

"Yeah," Ben answered, and pointed to a far corner. "And look over there."

They walked over and stood over the badly burned bodies, noticing the multiple gunshot wounds on the chests of the victims. The uniforms were burned to ash, with only the metal epaulets and medals remaining, partially melted.

Cooper squatted next to the bodies and pulled out his knife and used the point to pull the dog tags from where they had melted into the flesh of the corpses.

He handed them over his shoulder to Ben.

"One reads Bruno Bottger, and the other says Rudolf Hessner," Ben read. "Our Intelligence says Hessner was Bruno's right hand man, his aide-de-camp and personal bodyguard."

Jersey snickered. "Doesn't look like he was very good at his job."

Ben pursed his lips. "You were right, Ike. These men didn't kill themselves. Someone took them out with a machine gun of some sort, then poured gasoline over the bodies before they left."

Ike nodded. "Looks like Bottger was killed by some people high up on his staff, who then must have deserted and run for their lives when they knew the end was near."

Corrie was standing in the corner, talking on her handset. When she finished, she said, "Boss, I just got a report of a Huey flying from the city, toward the east coast and Mozambique. The recon plane had to turn back when it ran out of fuel and couldn't determine the final destination of the chopper, whether it turned back into the interior or headed out into the Mozambique Channel, toward Madagascar."

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Ike smiled. "That sounds like our culprits, Ben. Probably some generals who wanted to make an escape when Bottger wouldn't listen to reason and surrender when all hope was lost."

He turned and started to walk toward the door.

"Hold on," Ben said, a frown on his face.

"What is it, Ben?"

"I've got a funny feeling, Ike. This is just too pat. I can't believe anyone as paranoid as Bottger would let himself be caught unaware by some generals-who would never be allowed in his presence carrying machine guns in the first place."

He shook his head. "No. I think this is an elaborate stage set, organized by Bottger so we would think he was dead and wouldn't pursue the escapees."

"You mean you don't think these bodies are Bottger and Hessner?"

Ben's lips curled up in a sneer. "I very much doubt it, Ike. I think Bottger and Hessner were the occupants of that chopper, and furthermore I don't think we've seen the last of our little Nazi."

Ike spread his hands. "But Ben, what can he do even if he is alive and well, as you say? Hell, his army has been destroyed and he's running like a dog with his tail between his legs, with only the clothes on his back. How much of a danger can he be?"

Ben stared down at the corpses, still smoking as they lay on the concrete floor.

"I don't have all the answers yet, Ike. But you mark my words. Bottger is not a man to take defeat lightly. He'll be back, and when he reappears I'm gonna be there to knock him down again."

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Bruno slitted his eyes and groaned as he came awake. Raw pain prevented him from opening his eyelids fully. A black man wearing a white smock looked down at him, applying some sort of white ointment to his burns with a piece of cotton.

"Ah, you are awake again, Mr. Bottger." The man had a British accent, and the lilting tones of someone to whom the British language was not native.

For a moment Bruno couldn't remember anything clearly-an explosion, a fire, his uniform and face consumed by flames while men were screaming . . . while he was screaming, rolling in the damp grass following the crash when a rotor tip caught a tree limb as they were landing.

He groaned again as the memory of the Huey turning over on its side and the roar of exploding fuel brought him fully awake. He vaguely remembered trying to put out the fire consuming him and his clothing, knowing in his heart he was surely dying, being burned alive, rolling across the ground to try to smodier the flames.

And later, in a room somewhere with this same black man, a doctor Sergei had summoned from one of the villages to help survivors of the fiery crash.

"Tell . . . me . . . again what happened," Bruno

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croaked, his voice not his own. He felt woozy from the morphine, yet the pain was still unbearable, intruding on his thoughts, causing him to sweat, which in turn increased the pain even more in a terrible cycle of agony.

"Your helicopter crashed while trying to land. Only three of you survived. You are covered with second and third degree burns, Mr. Bottger. However, it appears you will live. There will be a great deal of scar tissue. I'm giving you everything I have for the pain you must be suffering, although I'm sure it is not enough."

The doctor hesitated, his forehead wrinkling in concern for his patient.

"I am not fully trained in burn treatment when the burns are so extensive, I fear, and there is none of the expensive equipment available here locally to repair tissue damage this severe."

Bruno tried to move his hand to grab the doctor's arm, but almost screamed at the pain the movement caused.

"Who are you?" he managed to croak through a throat that felt as if he had gargled ground glass.

"My name is Mati Ghanna. I was educated in India, and our medical training was sorely lacking in many areas. There are but a few doctors in Madagascar, and I doubt any of them has the knowledge to do more for you. I hope you understand. Madagascar is still a primitive country in many respects, and we are lacking in much of what modern medicine can provide. I can only do the best I can for you."

"Who else survived?" Bruno asked, trying to speak while moving his charred lips as little as possible.

"A man named Jules. The other is Rudolf."

"I must speak ... to Rudolf immediately. Or to Ser-gei."

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"I'm afraid Rudolf is still unconscious, as is Jules. Sergei is here, standing outside the door."

"Send . . . him in."

"As you wish, Mr. Bottger."

A door opening, then closing. Sergei's face appeared above Bruno's bed, a wrinkled face below a mane of curly blond hair.

"The gold," Bruno whispered. "What. . . happened to the gold in the chopper?"

"It is safe, General Field Marshal. Some of the bars melted down. We stored it in the basement room with the other gold and silver."

"And only Jules and Rudolf survived?"

"Yes, and they are as badly burned as you are. Jules may not live, the doctor said. The chances are fifty-fifty for Rudolf. The burns are quite bad for all three of you."

"How badly . . . am I disfigured? Tell me the truth."

Sergei's face showed concern. "You will require extensive reconstructive surgery. Your face is covered with burns . .. the skin was melted almost down to the bone. The doctor says there will be extensive scar tissue."

"Give me ... a mirror."

"I would advise against it, General Field Marshal. It is not something you would care to look at now. It would be best to wait until time has healed some of the worst wounds."

"Get me a mirror!"

Moments later, he gasped, then screamed in horror at what he saw peering back at him from the mirror.

He lay in bed in the darkened room. Three weeks had passed since the crash. A small mirror rested on a night table beside the bed. His brain awash in the glow

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of morphine, he tried to think logically despite the constant throbbing of pain from head to toe. And to remember bits and pieces of things Sergei told him over the past few days, when he was conscious enough to listen to and understand what was said.

Ben Raines and his Rebels had taken Pretoria, killing or capturing all New World soldiers. All of Africa was under the Rebels' control, with new governments being established in most African countries, according to short wave radio broadcasts.

Once again, Bruno's attempt at world domination had been smashed by Raines.

Jules was dead. Rudolf Hessner was recovering. The site of the helicopter crash had been covered with jungle plants, and as far as Sergei knew no one was looking for them here.

Sergei, on Bruno's orders, had executed the doctor and taken his supply of morphine and other painkillers. Bruno's recovery would be slow, and it could be mondis before his pain lessened to any extent.

Since there were no rehabilitative facilities in this country, he would be forced to do it on his own-the constant exercises to prevent contractures of his joints and skin, the debriding of dead and injured skin inch by inch, with only the most minute amounts of morphine to dull the terrible agony having his skin pulled off litde by little caused.

They were hidden away in the villa. He was alive, but badly scarred and partially blind. His blue contact lenses had melted during the fire. The gold and silver was secure in a vault in the villa's basement. For now, he was safe here. And he still had a fortune in precious metals.

Very slowly he reached for the mirror and held it up to his face. What he saw resembled a monster, a disfigured creature from someone's worst nightmares. His

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face and skull were masses of angry red granulation tissue and newly forming white scar tissue. He had no hair, no eyebrows or eyelashes, and a twisted piece of skin for a nose. His ears had been burned almost completely off, leaving only ridges of tissue surrounding holes in the side of his head. His lips were crusted flaps of burnt skin, and part of his tongue was missing. When he spoke his words were slurred, and his food had no taste at all.

To make matters worse, his genitals were mutilated beyond repair. He could urinate, though at the cost of incredible pain, but would forever be without sexual function. He would never father a child to carry on his dynasty.

"I'll get you, Raines," he said. "The next time I swear I will destroy you. You haven't heard the last of me...."

He tossed the mirror on the floor, hearing it shatter below the bed. Staring at the ceiling, he vowed to make Raines pay for what had happened to him.

For the present he was in hiding, a distorted caricature of a man, a hairless mass of scars and twisted flesh that would be frightening to anyone who saw him now. Surgery to repair his face would require years of grafting, and a specialist who knew what he was doing.

He could afford the best doctors in the world. Price would be no object. And as his physical appearance changed, so would his circumstances. He would contact Wu Sing in China very soon, and begin forming his plans for an alliance with Wu Sing's secret warrior society.

They could begin buying weapons, hiding them in parts of Mongolia, awaiting the day to launch a new attack on SUSA and the Tri-States.

"I'll be back, Raines!" he promised, his voice like the roar of a wounded lion.

343

Ben and Ike were conferring in Ben's new CP in an abandoned building in Pretoria.

"Do you really think it's that serious?" Ike asked.

"Yeah, Ike. Cecil Jefferys bumped me last night. He says he has definite intelligence that the NUS and EUS have cemented their alliance, are now calling themselves the NEUS, and plan to try to attack The SUSA before we can get our troops back to back him up."

"Damn! What are we gonna do?"

"I'm going to pack up the 501 and as much materiel as our C130s can handle and rush back to the States. It may not be enough to win if they start a war, but I can damn sure slow them down until you and the rest of the Rebel Army can get back by ship."

"I don't like this, Ben. Why can't I go with you?"

"Because, old friend, I need someone with your exceptional organizational skills to remain here to make sure the troops and supplies get moving as fast as possible. I'm gonna need you there as soon as you can possibly make it."

Ike narrowed his eyes. "There are some corners I can cut to speed up the process. I was hoping to give the men a short rest, but I guess that's out of the question now."

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Ben nodded. "They can rest on the voyage back to America. That, along with the time it takes you to get the ships loaded, should give them at least a couple of weeks."

"How about air support?"

"Captain Holland has assured me he can get the PUFFs and fighters over there in less than a week, using air-to-air refueling and some of the island bases still friendly to us. Unfortunately the choppers can't be refueled in the air, and will have to be carried over by ships."

"Hey, we didn't bring all the Apaches and Hueys with us to Africa. There are still some older models, and some that needed parts, in the States."

Ben snapped his fingers. "That's right. I had forgotten that."

He turned to Corrie. "Corrie, get on the horn to the base in Corpus Christi where they repair our helicopters and tell them to get cookin'. We're gonna need them ready to fly within forty-eight hours."

"Yes, Boss. I'm on it," she said, as she reached for her radio microphone.

"And tell them to double the security on the base, just in case those assholes in NEUS think of it, too."

"What are you going to do about Bottger, Ben?" Ike asked.

"Nothing for now. I've got to get home to help Cece out first. Everything else has to take a backseat."

He grinned. "Besides, as you said, without any money or troops, what harm can he cause?"

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Bruno lay in bed while Sergei adjusted the dials on a radio sitting on a nightstand beside the bed. Sergei looked up as he found a garbled speaker's voice on the dial. Radio transmissions in Madagascar were subject to weather conditions and the strength of the signal, and thus were frequently plagued by static and overriding of other signals.

"They said an announcement was forthcoming from a station in Johannesburg," Sergei said. "It is a special broadcast to be given by General Ben Raines. It's being relayed all over the continent of Africa. The speech will be translated into all Bantu dialects as well as English."

Bruno's fists closed despite the pain in his badly burned hands. He stared blankly at the ceiling while the static crackled from the radio's speaker.

"We have a message from General Raines," someone announced.

A deeper voice began speaking.

"As advocates and supporters of the Tri-States philosophy, we believe that freedom, like respect, is earned, and must be constantly nurtured and protected from those who would take it away. We believe in the right of every law-abiding citizen to protect his or her life, liberty, and personal property by any means at hand, without fear of

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arrest, criminal prosecution, or lawsuit. The right to bear arms is essential to maintaining true personal freedom.

"We believe that politicians, theorists, and socialists are the greatest threat to freedom-loving peoples, and that their misguided efforts have caused grave injustices in the fields of criminal law, education, and public welfare.

"Therefore, with respect to criminal law, an effective criminal justice system should be guided by these basic tenets:

"Our courts must stop pampering criminals.

"The punishment must fit the crime.

"Justice must be fair but also swift and, if necessary, harsh.

"There is no perfect society. Only a fair one.

"Therefore, with respect to education, education is the key to solving problems in any society, and the lack of it is the root cause of a country's decline.

"An effective system of education must stress hard discipline along with the arts, sciences, fine music, and basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. It must teach fairness and respect. It must teach morals, the dignity of labor, and the value of the family.

"Therefore, with respect to welfare. Welfare-we prefer workfare-is reserved only for the elderly, infirm, and those who need a temporary helping hand.

"And the welfare system must also instill the concept of honest work for honest pay. Instill the concept that everyone who can work must work, be forced to work if necessary.

"It must instill the concept that there is no free lunch, and that being productive citizens in a free society is the only honorable path to take.

"And that racial prejudice and bigotry are intolerable in a free and vital society. No one is worthy of respect

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simply because of the color of his or her skin. Respect is earned by actions and by deeds, not by birthright.

"There are only two types of people on earth . . . decent and indecent. Those who are decent will flourish, and those who are not will perish. No laws laid down by a body of government can make one person like another.

"A free and just society must be protected at all costs, even if it means shedding the blood of its citizens. The willingness of citizens to lay down their lives for the belief in freedom is a cornerstone of true democracy. Without that willingness the structure of society will surely crumble and fall into the ashes of history.

"Therefore, along with the inalienable right to bear arms and the inalienable right to personal protection, a strong, skilled, and well-equipped military is essential to maintaining a free society.

"A strong military eliminates the need for allies, allowing the society to focus on the needs of its citizens.

"The business of citizens is not the business of the world unless the rights of citizens are infringed upon by outside forces.

"The duty of those who live in a free society is clear, and personal freedom is not negotiable.

"In conclusion, we who support the Tri-State philosophy and live by its code and its laws pledge to defend it by any means necessary. We pledge to work fairly and justly to rebuild and maintain a society in which all citizens are truly free, and are able to pursue productive lives without fear and without intervention."

A pause. Bruno turned his face to the radio.

"This is how we live. We hope the continent of Africa will be governed that way someday." Raines continued. "For too long the people of Africa have been dominated by a man calling himself Bruno Bottger, and a political system he has named The New World Order. As of this

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date, The New World Order no longer exists on the African continent. This period of Nazi-style government has come to an end. Elections will be held, and the people of Africa will be free to govern themselves. Bruno Bottger and his army of Nazis have been defeated. bu have nothing to fear from him now. He has either been killed or driven from Africa, and his soldiers are prisoners of the Rebels."

Bruno raised his head off the pillow, his face a mask of hatred and pain. "To hell with you, Raines. I'll be back, and I'll be stronger than ever!"

A final message came from the radio. "Men like Bottger are the root of all evil on this planet. And we pledge, if he is still alive and hiding like the true coward he is, to hunt him down like the jackal he is, as well as all others who oppose the freedom of mankind. Africa is free, and we intend to make sure it remains that way forever."

Bruno slumped back on the mattress, his teeth gritted behind fire-scarred lips. Though he was concerned that Raines might not believe his staged death, he felt sure no one knew where he was at the present.

"Don't be too sure of yourself, Raines!" he hissed.

Sergei switched off the radio. Bruno closed his scabbed-over eyelids, planning for the future. Raines felt sure his victory was complete, Bruno thought. / will prove him wrong.

"The next time we meet on the battlefield, Raines, you will face total annihilation. Enjoy your brief moment of triumph, you arrogant bastard. When I arise from these ashes it will be with one purpose ... to destroy you. And I will!"