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Ben took one look and knew these men had come to fight. Ned Hawkins had not only trained them in combat skills, but also in military discipline. The men all stood at rigid attention. And while they were all driving pickup trucks, these trucks were not quite the garden variety.
The trucks were all four-wheel drive with high clearance. They had been repainted in earth tones to blend in. In the back of the trucks, heavy machine guns had been mounted and the sidewalls built up for maximum protection. The windshield had been replaced and could now be lowered on one side or the other, or both sides down.
“I knew a good ol’ boy who used to bulletproof cars for a living,” Hawkins said. “We went to his shop-‘way out in the boonies-and reworked these babies. They won’t stop a rocket, but they’ll stop anything else fired from small arms. Except for a Haskins .50 caliber, incendiary-tipped. You got any of those, General?”
“Every one that was ever made, I believe,” Ben replied.
Ned grinned. “I figured you would. You people
184 took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Still doing it,” Ben said, returning the grin. “But we also have a .50 caliber rifle that fires the same round but in automatic. Uses twenty-round clips. It’s a real jewel.”
“I bet it is! Come on. Meet the boys.”
Ben met several Jim Bobs and Joe Bills, a couple of Bubbas, and Cooter and Scooter. There was not a single Tex in the bunch. Neb Hawkins’s Texas Rangers-twenty-first-century style-were a combat-ready bunch. But they made it clear from the outset that they had plenty of respect for the Rebels.
“Any of your men married, Ned?”
“Some of them. What to do with the ladies is sort of a problem.”
“They’ll be safe at Base Camp One. We’ll fly them over there. Providing you all polygraph or PSE in without a hitch.”
Ned chuckled. “We all expected that, General. I’ll personally shoot any man who flunks it. I can’t abide a goddamned traitor.”
Ben looked at the man. “I really believe you would.”
“Oh, you can believe it. Like I told you, sir, we fight under two flags: Old Glory-or what passes for it now-and the flag of Texas. Any man who’d betray either one of them doesn’t deserve anything but a bullet or a hangman’s noose.”
Teams of doctors and polygraph and PSE operators were flown in and every one of the Rangers passed the grueling tests. The Rebels all knew the Texas men would fit right in when Ned winked at Ben and called to a man nicknamed Slim. Slim looked like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. But Ben correctly assumed that Slim was all whang-leather, gristle and bone and rawhide tough.
185 “Yes, sir, Colonel?” Slim said.
“I hate to tell you this, Slim,” Ned said with a straight face. “But I got to shoot you.”
“Shoot me! What the hell for?”
“Or maybe you’d rather be hanged. They tell me that’s a good, fast way to go.”
“Hang! Hell, no!” Slim hollered. “What’s happened, Colonel?”
“You failed all your tests, boy. That means you’re a collaborator.”
“Collaborator? Hellfire, Ned. I ain’t no collaborator. I been a Baptist all my life. You can ask my sister about that.”
Ned just couldn’t pull it off. He took a long look at the expression on Slim’s face and busted out laughing.
The last time anybody saw Slim and Ned for a couple of hours that afternoon, Slim was chasing his commander around the buildings of the old air force base, shouting curses and threatening to stomp his ass into the ground for pulling such a damn-fool stunt. While the Rebels and the Rangers stood around laughing.
Ben split up the Rangers into teams, then issued them body armor and other equipment he had flown in. “The cowboy hats are fine, until you go into combat,” Ben told them. “Then you wear helmets just like everybody else. Macho is one thing. Stupid is another. I need all the live allies I can find. Dead, you won’t be a bit of use to me. Or to Texas,” he added, knowing that would encourage the use of helmets more than anything.
Ben approved of the way Hawkins had split his people up. Four men were assigned to most of the
186 trucks. A driver and a gunner in the cab, and a machine gunner and helper in the padded bed of each truck. Others drove trucks loaded with food and ammo, cans of gas, and other equipment. Ben sent them westward at staggered intervals. When everybody was in place, from the New Mexico border to the west, and to the Arkansas border to the east, the teams would begin working south. They would inspect every town and travel every road in a search-and-destroy mission.
The Rangers had been assigned Rebel radios and a short course on how they worked was given by Corrie. There was no horseplay from the new men. They knew their lives might well depend on the radios and they paid close attention.
After wishing the new people well, and shaking hands with Ned, Ben and his bunch headed north, crossed the Red River into Oklahoma and cut east on Highway 70, taking the southernmost route across the bottom of the state.
They saw only desolation, despair, and ruin. For reasons that no one had ever been able to explain, Oklahoma had been the hardest hit by roaming gangs of thugs and punks right after the Great War and also during the later years. They had turned a large part of the state into piles of rubble. The Rebels did not have a single outpost in the southern part of the state.
“This drive is depressing,” Cooper said, after they rolled through what was left of a small town. “Where the hell are all the people?”
“There are some out there,” Ben said, gazing out the window. “See the plumes of smoke to the south?”
“Squatter camps,” Beth said. “I was talking with a scout the other day. He told me this stretch alonghere has a lot of them. They don’t do anything. Don’t raise
187 gardens or keep milk cows or do anything except hunt or fish. They’ve wiped out all the game in this area.”
“Weil put a stop to that after we’ve dealt with Hoffman,” Ben said. “Right now I don’t have time to fool with the shiftless bastards. Although it would probably be prudent to take the time to do so.”
“Why’s that, General?” Cooper asked.
“Trashy-assed people like Beth just talked about are always looking for the easy way out. Anything that goes wrong is never their fault. It’s always somebody’s else’s fault. Hoffman will recruit them to fight against us in one way or the other. If he’s smart, that is, and I think he is.”
“Scouts reporting a lot of chatter on CBs, General,” Corrie said.
“Hold it right here,” Ben said. “Let’s see what’s up ahead before we walk into something.”
“Scouts are laying back and reporting a massive roadblock on the outskirts of the town,” Corrie told him. “Heavily armed people are demanding that we pay them tribute before they’ll let us use the highways.”
Ben grunted. “Tribute, huh? Sure. It’s a trap,” he said, carefully rolling a cigarette. He was thoughtful for a moment “Tell the scouts to give the terrain on both sides of the blockade a very careful going over. I think we’re probably hard in enemy territory, gang. Pass that word, Corrie. I think Herr Hoffman’s goose-steppers have been here before us.”
“Scouts report seeing nothing out of the ordinary, General,” Corrie said after bumping the forward people. “But they say if you want a gut feeling, something is wrong.”
“Set up mortars,” Ben ordered. “Fire only on my orders. When crews are in place, get on the CB
188 channel and tell those people to tear down that blockade and get those hidden ambushers in plain sight or we’ll open fire. Order the scouts back.”
Corrie hesitated. “What if there are no ambushers, General?”
“Then I’ve made a mistake and those behind the barricades are in trouble.”
Ben ordered Cooper forward. In sight of the barricades but well out of range, Ben stood outside the Hummer and watched and waited. For a few moments, it looked like a cold standoff between the Rebels and the locals. Then cooler heads prevailed among those behind the barricades and Corrie got the word.
“They say hold our fire, General. The ambushers are being called in and they’re all backing off.”
“Tell them to lay all weapons on the shoulder of the road and do it now.” Ben watched through binoculars as the locals hurriedly complied. The barricades were torn down. The several-hundred-strong band of locals outnumbered the Rebels, but as it usually went, numbers meant very little. The reputation of the Rebels had preceded them. The locals wanted no part of the Rebels’ fury when engaged in a firefight.
The scouts moved in fast and secured the locals. Two Hummers with top-mounted .50s had a very calming effect on the would-be ambushers.
Ben got out and stood looking at the shiftless bunch. They were dirty and unkempt. “Don’t get too close,” he told his people. “I think they’ve got fleas… among other things.”
“There’s a damn river right outside of town,” Coop said. “Why don’t they bathe?”
“They’re losers,” Ben said. “And nothing that anybody did would change that. If these were normal
189 times, you could hand them a million dollars in cash today and they’d be dead broke in a year, or less, with nothing to show for it.” He raised his voice. “Who’s in charge of this pack of rabble?”
“I am,” a man said, stepping forward. “And we ain’t rabble.”
“That is certainly a matter of opinion,” Ben replied. “What did Hoffman’s soldiers offer you to fight on their side?”
The man exchanged glances with several people left and right of him. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Raines.”
“Sergeant Morgan,” Ben said, “if that man does not give a satisfactory reply to my question in five seconds, shoot him.”
Morgan lifted his M-16.
“Wait a damn minute!” the local yelled. “Holy shit! All right. All right. Hoffman’s people said they’d keep us supplied with food and clothing and the like. That’s a hell of a lot more than you folks has done for us.”
It was a never ending debate and Ben was weary of it. Back in the 1960s, the federal government had created programs to ease the burden of the poor. It looked good on paper. In effect it destroyed the work ethic and ruined the pride of millions of people. Why work when the government (using the tax money from millions of hard-working citizens) would feed, clothe, and house those who didn’t choose to work? Like nearly every government program ever devised by those ninnies in Washington, it swelled out of control and those in power didn’t have the courage to stop it.
“There are no free rides in Rebel society, mister,” Ben told the man, knowing damn well the citizen already knew it. Ben also felt this man was not from
190 Oklahoma; the accent was all wrong.
“We’re American citizens,” the man said sullenly. “We got a right to food and a decent life.”
“There is no America,” Ben told him. “Not like anything you or I knew before the Great War. At least something good came out of that tragedy. And the states are united, held together, only by Rebel outposts, populated by men and women who work their butts off from daylight to dark in an attempt to build a better way of life. You people know all this. You’re just too goddamn lazy to pitch in and help. Every one of you know the rules. If you want Rebel help, we’ll give it to you. All you’ve got to do is follow a few rules.”
“Your rules is too harsh, General,” a woman called out. “They’re unreasonable.”
“I’ve seen buildings all over the country jam-packed with law books,” Cooper said to Ben. “Billions of words that the average citizen couldn’t make heads or tails of. Our rules don’t even fill up a little notebook. What the hell’s the matter with people?”
“It’s too simple for them,” Ben said. “Sergeant?”
“Sir!”
“Gather up all the weapons. Prepare to move out.”
When the citizens didn’t protest, Ben knew they had more weapons cached somewhere. And if there were any children, the people had hidden them from Rebel eyes. The Rebels put the town behind them and rolled on. They traveled through fifty miles of nothing. Absolutely nothing. This time there was not one sign of human habitation. No smoke, nothing.
“Spooky,” Jersey said. “I’ll be glad when we’re clear of this stretch.”
The next town they rolled through was deserted,
191 and had been for a long time. Years of looting had left it very nearly in ruins.
“Let’s spend the night here,” Ben said. “We know there are people in the next town. What we don’t know is how they’ll receive us. We’d better be fresh when we find out.”
Ben walked the deserted main street of the town. In what had once been a drug store, he stepped into the gloom and prowled around. The place had been picked over so many times even the rats had finally left it.
He didn’t bother to check the pharmacy, for he knew he would find far-out-of-date medicines on the floor and on the shelves. The only things taken would be the drugs that would give someone an artificial high or low. Drugs that would save lives and fight infection would be largely ignored by the ignorant assholes with a looter’s mentality.
He stepped out of the gloom and into the late afternoon sunlight, his team right with him, and walked on.
“Scouts report the small library was burned,” Corrie said. “All the books destroyed.”
“Naturally,” Ben replied.
“Somebody sure did a number on this town,” Cooper said.
“Our people were probably among the first to strip it,” Ben said with a smile. “Back when we were building the old Tri-States.”
They passed what had been a small cafe. “I bet you a lot of coffee was sold in there and a lot of gossip shared,” Beth said. “If that place could only talk.”
“Memories,” Ben spoke softly. “Memories of a time that will never come again.”
A Hummer rolled up beside them and stopped. The Rebel said, “General, there isn’t anything in this
192 town. We haven’t seen a dog, a cat, a rat, nothing.” Ben stood for a moment, listening. There were no birds flying or singing. Without moving his head, he cut his eyes to the second floor of a building across the street. “At my orders,” he said very softly, “we jump into that cafe. When we jump, you people in that Hummer get the hell off the street and find cover. We just walked blindly into an ambush. Now!”
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