7 Prologue

If a war had not engulfed the entire world, plunging every nation into bloody chaos, the theory was the government of the United States would have collapsed anyway. Personal income taxes had been going up for years, and the hard-working, law-abiding citizens were paying well over half their income to the government. The left wing of the Democratic party had taken over and passed massive gun-grab legislation, effectively disarming American citizens-except for the criminals, of course, and about three quarters of a million tough-minded Americans who didn’t give a big rat’s ass what liberals said, thought, or did. Those Americans carefully sealed up their guns and buried them, along with cases of ammunition. When the collapse came, those Americans were able to defend themselves against the hundreds of roaming gangs of punks and thugs that popped up all over what had once been called the United States. The great nation would never again be accurately referred to as the United States of America.

Slowly, an ever-growing group of people began calling for a man named Ben Raines to lead them. But Ben didn’t want any part of leadership. For months he disregarded the ever-increasing calls from people all over the nation, until finally he could no longer ignore the pleas.

Months later, thousands of people made the journey to the northwest part of the nation and formed their own nation out

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of three states. It was called the Tri-States, and those who chose to live there based many of their laws on the Constitution of the United States: the original interpretation of that most revered document. Basically, it was a commonsense approach to government, something that had been sadly lacking for years with liberals in control of the old United States of America. But after only a few months in their new nation, Ben knew that only about two out of every ten Americans could-or would was more to the point-live under a commonsense form of government. Under this form of government, everyone, to a very large degree, controlled his or her own destiny. The Rebels, as residents of the Tri-States were named by the press, took wonderful care of the very old, the young, and those unable to care for themselves. But if a person was able to work, he worked … whether he liked it or not. There were no free handouts for able-bodied people. If they didn’t want to work, they got the hell out of the Tri-States. Very quickly.

The first attempt at building a nation within a nation failed when the federal government grew powerful enough to launch a major campaign against the Tri-States. The original Tri-States was destroyed and the Rebel Army was decimated and scattered. But the federal government made one major mistake: They didn’t kill Ben Raines.

Ben and the few Rebels left alive began rebuilding their Army, and then launched a very nasty guerrilla war against the federal government that lasted for months: hit hard, destroy, and run. It worked.

But before any type of settlement could be reached, a deadly plague struck the earth: a rat-borne outbreak, the Black Death revisited.

When the deadly disease finally ran its course, anarchy reigned over what had once been America. Gangs of punks and warlords ruled from border to border, coast to coast. Ben and his Rebels began the long, slow job of clearing the nation of punks and human slime and setting up a new Tri-States.

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This time they settled in the South, first in Louisiana, in an area they called Base Camp One. Then they began spreading out in all directions as more and more people wanted to become citizens of the new nation called the Southern United States of America: SUSA.

I Ben and the Rebels fought for several years, clearing the I cities of the vicious gangs and growing larger and stronger I while the SUSA spread out.

I In only a few years, the Rebel Army became the largest land most powerful army on the face of the earth … with I the possible exception of China. No one knew what was going Ion in China, for that nation had sealed its borders and cut I off nearly all communication with the outside world. I A few more years drifted by while the Rebels roamed the I world at the request of the newly formed United Nations, I kicking ass and stabilizing nations as best they could in the I time allotted them.

I But back home, the situation was worsening. Outside the I SUSA, the nation was turning socialistic with sickening I speed. The old FBI was gone, in its place the FPPS: Federal I Prevention and Protective Service. It was a fancy title that I fooled no one. The FPPS was the nation’s secret police, and I they were everywhere, bullyboys and thugs. Day-to-day ac-I tivities of those living in the USA were highly restricted. The I new Liberal/Socialist government of President for Life Claire I Osterman and her second in command, Harlan Millard, was now firmly in control.

There were border guards stationed all along major crossings in every state. But now many of them had been moved south, to patrol along the several-thousand-mile border of the SUSA.

A bloody civil war was shaping up between the USA and the SUSA. Rewards had been placed on the head of Ben

I Raines: a million dollars for his capture, dead or alive. But Ben was accustomed to that. He’d had rewards-of one kind or another, from one group or another-on his head for years.

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Anna, Ben’s adopted daughter, had been kidnapped by the FPPS. She was to be tried as a traitor against the Liberal/Socialist government and executed. A very highly irritated Ben knew the taking of Anna was intended to draw him out, for the FPPS was certain Ben would come after her … which he damn sure did, with blood in his eyes. That abortive move cost the FPPS several dozen agents and accomplished nothing else for Osterman and her henchman. But it further heightened the already monumental legend of Ben Raines … and made Claire Osterman and her government look like a pack of incompetent screwups … which they certainly were.

After Claire completely lost her temper and what little rational judgment she had, she started a civil war with SUSA, using hired mercenaries when half of her own USA troops refused to fight their neighbors. All along a battle line that stretched for thousands of miles, from Texas to Georgia in the Old South, federal troops faced Rebel forces across no-man’s lands.*

Once again the SUSA, led by Ben Raines and his team, kicked her federal troops’ butt in battle after battle, driving her into a fury that knew no bounds.

When Sugar Babe Osterman got word from her field commanders that Raines had killed Commanding General Walter Berman, head of her entire Army, in a hand-to-hand combat, she almost had a stroke. In a fit of pique, she notified Cecil Jeffreys, President of the SUSA, that if he and his leaders, especially that bastard Ben Raines, didn’t surrender, she was going to launch an all-out missile attack against the SUSA at 0600 hours. The missiles were to contain a highly effective, ancient strain of anthrax bacteria developed by a USA scientist, Yiro Ishi. The vaccinations the SUSA had given their troops against anthrax would be useless due to the ancient nature of this new strain.

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However, Ishi double-crossed Claire Osterman and gave I the formula for an effective vaccine to Ben Raines and a I fake formula to Osterman’s government. As the plague began Ito decimate the USA, Otis Warner, one of Claire Osterman’s Icabinet officers, conspired with General Joseph Winter to [have Claire Osterman killed in a plane crash.

When the plane went down, Warner and Winter, sure Os-Iterman was dead, took over the government of the USA, then (contacted SUSA president Cecil Jeffreys and began to discuss |a peace accord.*

However, Claire Osterman survived the plane crash and vas taken in by a family in the Ozark Mountains of Tennes-Isee …