118

“Sit,” Ben told the outlaw. He had been checked out and bathed and then fumigated for fleas and other bugs that sometimes inhabited the unbathed human body’s exterior.

The outlaw had lost all of his bluster. The Rebels had learned what prison guards had known for centuries: order a man to strip naked-if he refuses, you take his clothing by force, and do it with no more effort than handling a little child-and that man loses much of his resistance. Then after an anal probe is done, and not done gently, he is tossed into a shower and scrubbed pink, all his hair is shaved from his head, and he is forced to stand holding his britches up with one hand-for he has no belt-you usually have a very passive person on your hands. Not always, but usually.

The outlaw sat.

“Were you fed?”

“Yes, sir. Good grub, too. I was hungry. I appreciate it. I reckon that’s my last meal, ain’t it?”

“I doubt it. I don’t know what you’ve done, so we won’t try you. The locals will.”

“That’s even worser.”

119 “Now what do we do? Do you start telling me about your poor, miserable childhood and how your father beat you and all that happy crap?”

The outlaw chuckled. “I would if I thought it would do any good. But with you, I’d be wastin’ your time and mine.”

“Thank you. Sad stories always make me maudlin. I wouldn’t want to weep at all your recollections of past misfortunes. What can you tell me that might help us in this campaign?”

“Probably nothin’, to be honest about it. You know who runs the show?”

“Books Houseman.”

“Right. We busted up into small groups at his orders. Most is still in small groups, probably. Don’t make no difference no way. We’re still gonna lose. They’s somethin’ about you people that just scares the shit outta lots of us, includin’ me. They’s somethin’ about you people that none of us ain’t never seen ‘fore. I can’t name it.”

Ben knew. Total dedication. Discipline. The hardest training in the world. Experience. And the knowledge that what they were doing was right. “Go on.”

“There ain’t nothin’ left to say that you don’t already know. We ain’t got no fancy weapons like you people. No tanks, no artillery, no bazookas, no helicopters, nothin’ like you people. It’s just a matter of chasin’ us down and killin’ us.”

“Then why don’t you people just give it up? Odds are, many of the locals are wearying of the hangings by now. So you would be imprisoned or work on a chain gang. You’d be alive.”

The man smiled. “You don’t understand the criminal mind, do you, General?”

“I am forced to say that I don’t.”

120 “Oh, you’d get a few who would change. I mean, really change. But not the majority. You’d get a lot who would say they would change. But they’d be lyin’. Once you people pulled out, most would be right back stealin’ and killin’ and rapin’ and doin’ everythin’ they did ‘fore you showed up.”

“And you?” Ben asked, giving the man an opening, a way out.

“I don’t know, General. I been on the wrong side of the law all my life. Years before the Great War come. My daddy was a farmer and my mamma a schoolteacher. They brought me up right-or tried to. It just didn’t take. Some people are born bad. I really believe that.”

“So do I.” Ben studied the man foramoment. “I’m going to take a chance with you … what is your name?”

“John Morris.”

“All right, John. I think you’ve been honest with me, so I’ll reward that. You asked if I understood the criminal mind. Who does? So I’m going to send you back to let the shrinks pick your brain. But with a word of caution: you won’t find Rebel shrinks to be anything like the ones you probably came in contact with before the Great War. Don’t try to bullshit these people. They don’t play those kinds of games. You can go.”

John stood up, holding his deliberately ill-fitting pants up with one hand. “And if I’m honest with these people, General?”

“You might get another shot at making a new life.”

“Or I just might get shot, period.”

“That is always an option, John.”

121 Ben stepped out of his CP long before dawn the next morning. Not a man who required a lot of sleep, Ben had slept his usual few hours and felt refreshed. He got a cup of coffee from the mess tent and walked back to his CP.

“Must have been real quiet last night,” he said to the sentry.

“It was, sir. It didn’t take the locals long to deal with the crud once they had the Dusters and the Rebels along.”

Ben sat down in an old chair on the front porch and rolled a cigarette, then drank his huge mug of coffee-actually it was a beer stein-and smoked in the predawn hours. At 0430 his team was up and dressed and having coffee with him on the porch.

“This has been a picnic so far, General,” Jersey finally spoke, after a refill of coffee. She was self-admittedly a real bitch in the mornings until she had at least one cup of coffee. Cooper gave her a wide berth until she had her coffee. “I talked with a guy from Tina’s battalion last night. Our people are kicking the crap out of them over on Kauai.”

“Say what’s on your mind, Jersey,” Ben told her.

“General Ike could handle this operation and we could get the hell back to the mainland and start setting up for all that crap that’s coming up from the south.”

“These people aren’t professionals, General,” Beth said. “It’s nothing but target practice for us. It’s boring.”

“A lot of strain on General Jefferys back home,” Corrie said. “And he’s not in the best of health.”

Ben had been giving that a lot of thought. Cecil was not in good health and with this new threat from South America, Cec had a lot of pressure on him. But to leave in the middle of a campaign … ?

122 Corrie’s radio started squawking and she went inside. She came out a few moments later, her face grim-looking in the dim light. “This Hoffman person is on the move, General. That was Therm from HQ. Base Camp one had just bumped him. General Jefferys wants you to holler at him as soon as possible.”

Ben walked over to the communications truck and got Cec on the horn. “What’s up, Cec?”

“It’s bad, Ben,” came the voice from thousands of miles away. “Hoffman’s sent infiltrators into the States. Intelligence thinks they were sent in months, maybe years ago, and kept their heads down … in a manner of speaking. What they’ve been doing is recruiting while you’ve been gone. Obviously this move was planned years back. The infiltrators have been in contact with extreme-right-wing, hate-filled survivalist groups for a long time. You know the type. I’ve got to have some people over here as fast as possible. We’ve got to nip this in the bud right now.”

“All right, Cec. I’ll get back to you by 0900 my time. Hang in there. Eagle out.” He put a hand on the operator’s shoulder. “Get all batt comms over here right now, son.”

“We going home, General?” the young Rebel said.

“Some of us are.”

“Ben, we’re falling all over each other on these islands,” Ike said. “Hell, we’ve collected enough weapons from the outlaws to outfit every man, woman, and child left.”

“We’re just backing up the locals on Kauai,” I Buddy said, and the other batt comms nodded their | heads in agreement.

123 “Yes,” Danjou said. “Two battalions on Kauai and two battalions here would be more than sufficient to do the job. And it would not take us long. There are so many of us here now, we run the risk of shooting at each other.”

“Cecil would not call for help if he didn’t need it,” Georgi Striganov pointed out.

“Take Therm’s Headquarters Company,” Tina said. “He’s got to get set up and running Stateside. Hell, Dad, the outlaws here are falling apart.”

“They might pull themselves back together if the majority of us pull out,” Ben said.

“I hope they do,” Pat O’Shea said. The wild Irishman grinned. “That way we could say we’ve been in a real fight.”

“The ships are ready, Ben,” Ike said. “You could be sailing in three days.”

Ben toyed with a pencil for a moment. “All right. Ike, you’re in command here. I’ll leave your battalion and three others. Buddy, your Eight Battalion will remain, along with Ten and Fourteen Battalions. Everything else, including Therm’s Headquarters Company, will move back to the mainland and start setting up to meet Hoffman’s divisions. I’m going to take all the special-ops people.”

Ben looked at Thermopolis. “You and your people are the first out of here, Therm. Start taking your operation apart and packing it up.”

Corrie intercepted the runner and took the message. “General, about three hundred punks just surrendered to B Company of Two Battalion. They said there are about five hundred more ready to pack it in.”

“Well, shit!” Pat O’Shea said. “What the hell is the matter with these people? I haven’t seen a decent fight since we got here!”

124 Ben sat in the bleachers of an old football stadium and looked at the mass of punks being held on the playing field. He was glad he was leaving so he would not have to listen to all the sob stories that were surely going to come out of the mouths of the captured outlaws. It had reached the point where it seemed like everytime a Rebel looked up, a group of outlaws was walking down the center of a road, their hands in the air. But several thousand hard-core still remained full of defiance and ready to fight to the death.

With Ike in command of the battalions remaining behind, those outlaws would surely get their wish. Ike was not known for his gentle, humanitarian leanings.

One of the outlaws on the playing field looked up at Ben and waved. Others saw him and began waving and cheering … probably due to the fact that they had surrendered to Rebels and were still alive.

“Wonderful,” Ben said, halfheartedly returning the wave. “Now I have a cheering section.”

Corrie, Beth, Jersey, and Cooper did their best to hide their grins.

Ben looked over at them. “Oh, go on and laugh!”

They did.

Ben spent his time watching the loading of equipment and troops. There was nothing left to do. The outlaws were surrendering in droves, and the four remaining battalions still in active service were hard-pressed just to find places for them and to help with the guarding. What had started out to be a major operation was ending with all the sparkle of a glass of

125 flat champagne.

The Rebels on Kauai had found the bodies of half a dozen gang leaders. They had committed suicide rather than face the hangman’s noose. They were identified as Larry Perkins, Kip Burdette, Wee Willie, Rye Billings, Dean Sherman, and a woman that was known as Sarah.

“There is no way the good people on these islands can house and feed and guard all these slimeballs,” Ben said at a final meeting of batt comms before he was to shove off for the mainland. “So I have a plan. I’ve talked with a dozen ex-captains of ships and they like the plan and will go along with it. They’ve already started working on those cargo ships in the harbors of these islands. They’re to transport these thugs and creeps all over the Pacific Ocean, dropping them off in small numbers on every island … inhabited or not. Oh, it’ll be checked out for water and food sources; I’m not leaving them to die some horrible death. And if the island is inhabited, the people will be told what they’re getting and asked if they want them. The hard-core will be taken to the west coast of South America and kicked oyt there. To hell with them.”

Georgi Striganov grinned, nudged Ike in the ribs, and held out his hand. “Pay me,” the Russian said. “I told you that was what he’d do.”

Ike handed him a fistful of worthless old American money and Georgi used a one-hundred-dollar bill to light a cigar.

Therm and his Headquarters Company had already pulled out, on a ship loaded with excess supplies. They would be met by Rebels in America and escorted to a location near the border with Mexico and set up there.

The battalions sailing back to the mainland were

126 packed up and ready to board the ships.

“We’ve got nearly twenty thousand locals armed to the teeth, Ike broke into Ben’s thoughts. “Hell, they outnumber us!”

“General,” Pat O’Shea said. “I thought Hitler’s dream was a pure Aryan nation?”

“It was, more or less. Why do you ask, Pat?”

“Well, in this latest dispatch from General Jefferys, it says that the divisions coming up to do battle with us are made up of people from all over the world. All colors and all nationalities. I don’t get it. That isn’t what Hitler envisioned.”

“These people aren’t really followers of Hitler, Pat. Very few of them are even German. These people are terrorists, for the most part. But dangerous. In that last dispatch, Cecil talks about the Hitler Youth Corps. But now it’s called the Hoffman Youth League. That tells me that he’s had years to train these people. And that means that we’ll be up against the largest, best-trained, best-equipped, and most highly disciplined and motivated army we have ever faced.”

“You’re really worried, aren’t you, Ben?” West asked.

“Damn worried, my friend. We’ve never met a force we couldn’t beat. But this time, I’m afraid our losses are going to be staggering.”