"I know. Leathers informed me. They've been having trouble out of them for months. Shooting trouble. It's a pretty well-organized gang of thugs. Ham should be radioing in any time."

"Wonder why Thermopolis and his bunch decided to break off from the main column and follow us?"

Jersey asked.

Jerre answered that. "He likes to study Ben.

Says the general is a walking contradiction."

"So is he," Beth said.

"That's very true. We're more alike than you think,"

Ben spoke. "Cut off his hair and the only difference would be our tastes in music. Thermopolis claims to hate big government, but he knows that the only way to survive in these times is with a form of centralized government. Cut through all his rhetoric and you'll find that's one of the main reasons he joined us. He and his bunch will always live apart from us, but not too far away. And I can appreciate that."

"Ham calling in," Corrie said.

Ben picked up his mic. "Go, Ham."

"Fifty to sixty men in the town. Maybe that many women. They have kids, General."

"How are they armed?"

"Pretty well. Mostly small arms. I

haven't seen anything in the way of heavy stuff."

"Stand clear of the town. We'll be there in a few minutes."

As soon as the thugs and outlaws in the town saw it really was Ben Raines coming at them dead on, they left their women and kids and hit the trail in cars, fender-flapping pickup trucks, and smoking motorcycles.

"Nice brave bunch of people," Jersey said.

"Really care a lot for their families, don't they?"

"Most animals will die protecting their offspring," Jerre said. "So much for the theory that humankind is superior to animals in all ways."

Ben didn't argue that. He felt the

same way about it. Looking at the thugs and punks in wild retreat, he knew that the battle for America might be very nearly over. Six months back, the outlaws would have stayed and fought the Rebels comnow most of the slimebags they encountered just ran away in fear.

Ben knew there would always be some that would stand up to his people, but those were becoming fewer and fewer, with wider intervals between battles.

"What do we do with the women?" Ham asked, walking up to the wagon.

"Any suggestions, Cooper?" Jersey needled him.

Cooper shook his head. "Don't look at me.

I wouldn't touch one of them with a sterilized poker."

Yes, one very long battle was maybe, just maybe, drawing to a conclusion in the United States. But the Rebels had discovered that a large percentage of outlaws and their women who were taken alive and given medical tests were walking germ factories. Sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and AIDS were running rampant. Another battle was waiting in the wings.

TB had reared up again. But for some reason cancer, per capita, had taken a dramatic

nosedive and the doctors and researchers at Base Camp One could not explain that.

But Doctor Chase had a theory. Chase had a theory about everything. "The factories have stopped belching millions of tons of crap into the air each year," he theorized. "Farmers no longer poison the earth and the air with chemicals ... all in the name of progress, of course. And," he would add, eyeballing Ben's cigarette, "those things are harder to come by."

Ben shook his head and said, "Line the women and kids up, Ham. Tell the medics to break out the equipment and let's check them over. Corrie, bump Jeff City and tell Tina we'll be there when we get there. Tell her what we're doing."

He got out and walked up to the line of women, and a sorry-looking lot they were. He stared at them for a moment. "Good afternoon, ladies. It appears that your menfolk have deserted you. You have any plans for the future?"

They all returned his stare, sullenly and silently.

Ben decided to try another tact. "How long has it been since you and your children have seen a doctor?"

That struck a responsive cord. One woman, holding an infant in her arms, said, "We haven't ever seen a doctor. There's doctors around, a few of them, but they refuse to see us."

"Perhaps they don't like the company you keep," Ben suggested.

She shrugged. "What's that got to do with treating babies?"

"Good point." Ben smiled at her. "The sins of the father are often passed onto the child. I'm not saying it's right; but that's the way it is many times."

"My baby's sick," the mother said.

"We have doctors." Ben tossed the decision back to her.

"With strings attached," she countered.

"Not for the first go-around."

"I don't know what that means, but my kid's sick. And it isn't right to let a baby suffer."

"I agree. The medics are setting up in that building right over there." He pointed.

"How are we supposed to pay?" another asked.

"We ain't got nothin' to barter that y'all'd want." Before Ben could tell her there would be no charge, her eyes shifted, to touch Thermopolis.

"You a funny-lookin' soldier, man.

You look like one of them hippies I seen in a book."

"I share the philosophy of the sixties,"

Thermopolis told her. "Even though I was barely walking at the time and hardly able to grasp the social significance of the movement."

She blinked and shrugged. "Whatever that means." Her gaze shifted back to Ben. "How do we pay?"

"It's free," Ben told her.

"There ain't nothin' free, mister

whatever-your-name-is. We'll have to pay for it, one way or the other."

"Why don't we just treat your children first. Then we'll talk."

"Are you really Ben Raines?" another asked.

"Yes"

"Them ol' boys we took up with, and who just took off like their asses was on fire, is scared to death of you, Mister Raines."

"They probably have good reason to be. We've left their kind lying dead all over this nation."

"You gonna kill our men if you catch them?"

"If we decide to go after them and if they choose to fight."

"They ain't much good, for a fact," she admitted. "But when your whole world has been tore down and it don't look like it's ever gonna be put back together again, a body does what you can to survive."

"As long as what you do does not involve killing and stealing from others who are working to rebuild a better society."

She nodded her head. "You ain't givin' people much of a choice, Ben Raines."

"It's all spelled out quite clearly in the Bible, Miss."

"Don't hand me that crap! There ain't no God, Mister Raines. God wouldn't have allowed the whole damn world to be destroyed. Little babies sufferin' and dyin' all over the damn place. I can't believe a smart man like you would even think there ever was a God."

"Oh, there is a God, Miss. But He is a very vindictive God. He said he would never again destroy the earth by flood. Maybe the Great War was His way of telling us we'd better shape up."

"So now you're God's right-hand man, huh?" It was not said sarcastically, but it was spoken with a very slight smile.

Ben laughed. "Oh, no. I'm a

mortal being. With all the mortal faults and frailties built in. I'm just a man who is trying to restore the nation to some semblance of what it once was, that's all."

"But on your terms." It was not put as a question.

"That is correct."

"You know that there are them who think you are a god, Ben Raines."

"I know. They are wrong. I am a mortal man, and nothing more."

She shook her head. "No. I don't believe that. I don't think you're a god. But there's something about you that makes people want to gather around and listen to what you have to say, and then act on it. Follow you.

What am I trying to say?"

"Charisma," Thermopolis said.

"Yeah," the woman replied. "Maybe that's it.

I don't know."

"Your baby looks feverish" Ben said.

"She is. And a lot of the others kids as well.

We run out of medicine a long time ago. Been takin' the babies to see an old woman back in the hills; she's been treatin' them with herbs and plants and the like."

"Does it work?"

"Sometimes."

"We're ready, General," Jerre called from the hastily set up aid station.

"You make my baby well," the woman asked, "you gonna take her away from me?"

"That depends entirely on you."

"Like I said, there ain't nothing free in this world."

"That's right," Ben told her. "That was the problem before the Great War. Too goddamn many people wanting something for nothing."

He turned and walked away, before he lost his temper.

Villar, Khamsin, and Kenny Parr traveled hard, knowing that Ben Raines would have Rebels hot after them.

"Is there anything left of Chicago?" Kenny asked. "If there is, we could go there. Although food would certainly be a problem."

"Stay out of the cities," Khamsin said. "Ben Raines and his Rebels are experts at combat in the streets. Believe me, I know firsthand."

Even Villar had been awed when Khamsin told them about the Rebels taking on impossible odds in New York City comand winning. Villar was beginning to see why Ben Raines was unstoppable. And he did not like the taste it left on his tongue.

Still, he believed it was better than what he had left behind in Europe and Khamsin had left behind in South America.

Death was preferable to being eaten alive or put on a forced-labor farm or being forced to fight to the death in an arena against some trained gladiator ... all for the pleasure of those who had proclaimed themselves kings and queens of this or that section of whatever country.

Many parts of Europe had reverted back to the Dark Ages . . . and done so very quickly.

And, Villar was reluctantly forced to admit, at least to himself, he had certainly had a hand in bringing about that change.

The battered armies of the terrorists and the outlaw had taken refuge in an old state park just south of Peoria, and just east of the Illinois River.

They would stay only for a day and a night, and then move on. The three of them had decided that the woods of Wisconsin or Minnesota would probably be the safest spot for them to hole up and try to rebuild their shattered armies.

But Villar knew only too well that unless they could beef up their forces, and do it quickly, eventually the Rebel Army of Ben Raines would find them and wipe them out. He also wondered who Raines would send after him; he thought he had a pretty good idea.

A runner confirmed his suspicions.

"We just intercepted a communication, sir," he panted the words that Villar quickly and accurately guessed that he did not wish to hear. "It was an open transmission from a small group of survivors living somewhere not too far south of here. Colonel Dan Gray and a battalion of Rebels just left their zone, moving north."

"No idea where it came from?"

"It was a very strong signal on low band. So it probably was not more than fifty miles away."

"Damn!" Villar cursed his luck. Dan

Gray. He knew the Englishman would track him to the ends of the earth and beyond for an opportunity to kill him. Lan Villar got to his boots and gave the orders to his tired men. "Get up and get moving.

We've got to leave and leave now! We'll cross the river just up ahead and cut straight north. Get moving, people. If you want to live."

"If we are to believe the transmission, there is only one battalion of Rebels," Kenny

pointed out. "And many Rebel battalions are short compared to normal size. We have approximately twenty-five hundred men."

Villar did not lose his temper with the young man. For he, too, had once been young and reckless. "But they have tanks and long-range artillery, Kenny. And for more than a decade, one Rebel in battle has been proven to be the equal of five other soldiers. So if you take that into consideration,

they

have

us

outnumbered!"

Less than forty miles to the south of where Villar and the others were pulling out, Dan brought his column to a halt and called Buddy and his Rat Team members back in from the point.

"We have about two hours of good daylight left,"

Dan told his people. "Well make camp here for the night. Too risky rolling after dark. Believe me when I say that Villar is an expert in ambush."

They had made less than a hundred miles that day, due to the constant sending out of patrols in all directions in search of the terrorist army.

Dan knew they were not far behind, due to the signs his people had been picking up: a fresh oil slick, a bloody bandage, a piece of uniform carelessly discarded or blown out of the back of a truck by the wind.

Dan prepared his four o'clock tea and leaned up against a tree trunk, sipping the fragrant brew.

Dan also felt the general was a bit optimistic with his predictions of ending the battle for North America by fall. But Dan seldom argued with superior officers . . . unless his opinion was asked for, and this case, it had not been.

A runner from communications broke into his thoughts with a message.

"Sir, we've received another of those messages from Malone up in the Northwest."*

*Death in the Ashes -Zebra Books

"Still calling for men and women to join him in his fight to, in his inimitable prose, purge the earth of all nonwhites?"

"Ah ... Yes, sir."

"The swine! I wish we could have finished him when we had the chance. If Villar hears the message, he'll perk up like a vulture sensing death."

The runner waited.

"Thank you," Dan said with a nod and a smile, dismissing the young Rebel.

Dan leaned back against the tree and sipped his tea, thinking. He knew from looking at all the gear captured outside East St. Louis that Villar had very fine electronic equipment; capable of scanning all bands, high and low. So the odds were good that he had caught the message.

All right comassume that he has. So? What to do?

Dan took a map from his case, intending to study it carefully. He knew Villar was close.

Probably no more than fifty or sixty miles away. And Villar, if he was to survive, had to beef up his forces. And Villar, Dan knew, would make a pact with the devil if he had to.

Dan waved Hans Strobel to him.

"Yes, sir?" The German stood at very loose attention. Experienced soldier that he was, he knew not to salute or to show any obvious signs that he was facing an officer. Snipers looked for that.

"Go to the communication van and have the operator send a coded and scrambled message to General Raines.

Advise him that I am breaking off pursuit and will begin a hard drive westward. This is in response to Malone's messages. He'll know what I'm talking about. We cannot let Villar and his people link up with that nut."

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

"Hans?" Dan called to his back.

The German stopped and turned. "Yes, sir?"

Dan smiled at him. "Loosen up, my friend.

We're a pretty informal bunch most of the time.

Relax -- you've made the team or you wouldn't be here."

"Thank you, Colonel. That's the best news I've had in years."

"What do you know about this Malone person, Khamsin?" Villar asked.

"He's a nut," the Libyan said flatly. "But he's still got a lot of men."

"And with groups monitoring those messages he's sending out," Kenny added, "I'll make a bet he'll add considerably more to his force."

"How large a force currently under his command?"

Villar directed the question at Khamsin.

"I would say between fifteen hundred and two thousand,"

the Libyan said. He opened a map of the West.

"All of them holed up in this wilderness area."

"Food supplies?"

"Voleta told me they have many gardens planted all over this area. It's a short growing season, but they do quite well with it and have canning facilities to prepare and store food for the winters, which are extremely harsh, I was told."

"This Voleta woman seems to be more of a nut case than I care to align myself with," Villar spoke. "At least for any period of time. However, we might be able to use her to our advantage." He sat back, hard in thought. "We have to get to Malone. That's our second objective. This Malone might not agree with us philosophically, but he needs our strength as much as we need his. If Voleta can keep Raines occupied in Missouri, we just might have a chance of

linking up with Malone."

Kenny looked at the terrorist. "You said that was our second objective. What's the first?"

"Avoiding Dan Gray in order to stay alive long enough to accomplish the second objective!"

The women and kids had been checked over and medicine dispensed where needed. Ben was in his tent, listening to Jerre's report.

"The children are all anemic, and of course none of them have been inoculated against the normal childhood diseases. They've been very fortunate in that no epidemic has struck them . . . yet.

Blood-test results show that about half of the women are either alcoholics or addicted to some drug."

"Drugs!" Ben straightened up. "What kind of drugs?"

"Amphetamines, mostly comwhat we used to call speed. PCP, the old angel dust, which can be manufactured anywhere is also widely used.

Several of the women told me that was their boy friends'

chief line of business. They trade drugs for food and medicine."

"Good God! I thought all that nonsense was years behind us."

"Obviously not."

"Are they worth our time and effort attempting to salvage, Jerre?" Ben had already made up his mind about that; but he wanted some input from Jerre.

The younger woman sighed. She had suspected Ben would throw that question at her, and she had dreaded the moment.

"They're all human beings, Ben."

"They walk upright," Ben tossed that back to her.

"I looked around this town while you people were checking them out. Nothing to resemble a school.

The older kids can't read or write. No gardens planted. The houses they squat in are

filth-filled. They have no plumbing

facilities. They've made no effort to improve themselves or the town in which they live. In several of the homes, human excrement was two feet deep in the bathrooms. They lie, they steal, and they are accomplices to murder, torture, and rape.

They're losers. Well take the children and tell the women to hit the road." He turned to Corrie.

"Make arrangements to have the kids flown to a secure zone."

"What if the women decide to make a fight of it, Ben?" Jerre asked. "We didn't disarm them ...

at your orders."

"It will be a very brief fight."

Few of the outlaw women kicked up any fuss at having their kids taken from them. Most of them seemed relieved and glad to be rid of the children.

Ben had spoken to Leathers by radio, advising him of their actions and warning that the outlaws were still in his area.

Only two of the women were allowed to keep their children and be flown to another zone; one of them was the woman who had the brief debate with Ben. There was a spirit in both of them that Ben liked, and he made up his mind after seeing where they lived. The small houses were clean and some effort had been made toward plumbing and their own personal hygiene. Whether or not the women could make it in a controlled zone was up for grabs. Time would tell. The older kids were allowed to leave with their mothers. Many bitter and heart-tugging past experiences had effectively shown the Rebels that once a child passed into their teens, and became hardened to brutality and crime, rehabilita-

tion was nearly impossible to achieve. The Rebels had the inclination and desire to try, but neither the time nor the facilities to expel trying. It was a hard decision, but one that had to be made. The Rebels would not jeopardize four younger children in order to save one older teen. It was a situation that none of the Rebels -- including Ben-enjoyed seeing; but it was a decision that was made almost daily somewhere in the shattered nation, by some Rebel commander.

The Rebels pulled out just after dawn, following the river road toward Jefferson City. Ham and his team of Scouts took the point. They were followed by two Dusters, five hundred meters behind the point.

The Rebels saw no other living being on the way to Jefferson City. They passed through towns that were rapidly falling apart, having been looted dozens of times over the decade since the Great War. Many of the buildings had burned . . . most of them deliberately set on fire by crapheads who enjoyed seeing things burn, and knowing they could get away with it now with only a degree or two more impunity as they had when the nation was whole.

Ben said as much as they rolled and rumbled through the charred remnants of a small town.

"What do you mean, General?" Corrie asked.

"They were punished back before the Great War, weren't they?"

Jerre laughed, knowing more than the others what was coming.

Ben smiled. "They were slapped on the wrist by judges, told they were naughty, naughty boys, and usually turned loose to do it again."

"That doesn't make any sense," Beth said.

"Neither did our judicial system. And as long as I'm alive it will never return to that ridiculous degree of incompetence."

Ben looked out the window of the big wagon. "We're going to be an island standing in the middle of anarchy, people. Surrounded by human sharks with nothing in their pea brains but blood lust. Once this continent is secure, we're going to have to shift our base of operations -- or somebody is comand secure the rest of the world, country by country. And that is going to take a lifetime. Maybe several lifetimes. We

cannot permit our ideals and goals to die. That is why I put so much emphasis on education.

"When this nation was intact, our public schools commostly due to court decisions -- failed the nation for several decades. Our school systems became staffed with personnel obsessed with excellence in athletics and rot of the mind. We allowed games to reach the stature of a religion. It was downhill from that point.

"Our society became the most materialistic society on earth. Many of our elderly died alone and afraid, hungry and cold; the young could not receive proper medical care; victims of crime were ignored while we sobbed and moaned over the poor criminal, and endangered species of animals were slaughtered into extinction, while a good fifty percent of Americans spent literally billions of dollars pleasuring themselves on the most idiotic and meaningless of games or events . . . stepping over the homeless and mentally ill and young and old and sick and dying on their way to those dubious proceedings.

"As long as God allows me to live and pick up a gun, and as long as one person will follow me comor if I have to do it alone -- I will never see this nation return to those shameful days."

Those in the wagon were silent for a mile or so until Jersey wiped her eyes and broke the silence. "That was beautiful, General. If I wasn't a soldier, I think I'd just bust right out and bawl. I might anyway."

Ben started laughing at the expression on her face and the laughter became infectious. They were still laughing and wiping their eyes when they rolled into the ruins of Jefferson City, with Rebels they passed looking at them and wondering what in the hell was going on?

Ben drove through the looted and trashed city. He was not surprised to see several trucks with the bodies of dead creepies in the beds.

"Have a little trouble, Tina?"

"A little. Six and Seven Battalions stayed out of the city. As soon as we rolled in the creepies attacked. It didn't take them long to realize they'd made a bad mistake. By that time it was too late. Jefferson City isn't that big a place so there weren't that many creepies here. I think we got most of them. Only a few of them escaped.

Dad, have you heard from Dan and Buddy?"

"Both of them are all right. They haven't made contact with Villar yet."

He explained Dan's change in plans

and his daughter nodded her head in approval.

"If they link up with Malone and his squirrels we'll be right back in the fire again. And you can bet that Villar will never again allow his men to be trapped like they were in Illinois."

Ben certainly agreed with that. The Rebel's victorious battle with Villar was the only campaign that Ben could remember where the Rebels had no dead or wounded. Odds of that ever happening again were astronomically high against it.

"Dad? We don't really know the size of Malone's army, do we?"

"No. Conservative guesses place his strength as few as seven hundred and fifty, as many as three thousand. I'd guess fifteen hundred fighters.

Add

the strength of Villar and Khamsin and Parr, and it kicks it up considerably. To about four thousand. So we can't allow that to happen. Tina, I'm going to send Georgi and his men to beef up Dan and chase Villar. In addition I'll send Five and Six Battalion with them. We cannot allow Villar to link up with Malone."

Ben lifted his mic and gave the orders. He turned to Tina. "Ike will move into the northernmost sector of the state. You join them.

Stretch out up to the Iowa line."

"We're going to be thin."

"I know. It has to be. Georgi will stretch his people, and Five and Six Battalions up

into Minnesota. I'm placing all units north of the line under Georgi's command. Cecil's people will beef up Seven Battalion south of us. I'll take this sector. Ike will replace Five Battalion north of us up to the line."

He drove back to his CP and Tina gathered up her gear and her team. "See you, Pop," she called.

"Take care, kid."

He called for a meeting of his commanders.

"Risky, Ben," Ike pointed out. "But I see the need for it."

"Voleta could mass her people and punch through the lines, Ben," the Russian said. "Specifically your lines. It's you she wants."

"I know," Ben acknowledged.

"If she punches through, Ben," Cecil said, "She could cut off Jeff City and really have you in a box."

"I am aware of that."

They all knew then that Ben had some plan working in his head, but was not yet ready to tell them the details of it. Perhaps he hadn't finalized it as yet. They all knew that he would tell them when he was good and ready, and not a moment before.

"When do you want us to pull out, Ben?" Georgi asked.

"Now."

"General Raines is splitting up his people," Sister Voleta was informed. "Our people behind his lines report a massive pull-out from Jefferson City."

"Which direction?" Ashley asked.

"Mostly to the north."

Ashley smiled. "He's trying to stop Villar and the others from reaching Malone. It's a good move on his part. Albeit a very risky one."

"We take him now!" Voleta said, smiling like a shark in anticipation of blood. "We can punch through his lines and surround him."

"No!" Ashley nixed that. "Don't be so

impetuous, my dear. Bear in mind that Raines used poisonous gas to stop Villar and the others. It might be that he wants us to enter the city so he can do the same thing. He has a plan for us; bet on that."

"So we do what?" Voleta asked, her eyes shining with dark hatred for Ben Raines.

"We've got to wait and watch the Rebels very carefully . . . and as closely as is possible."

Voleta paced the room and cursed Ben Raines and her traitorous son, Buddy. The years had taken their toll upon the woman. Where she had once been beautiful, the years of intense hatred had poisoned her, turning her beauty into ugliness. Her face seemed to be frozen in a perpetual mask of hideous scowling. Her dark eyes burned with a strange light.

Ashley, on the other hand, seemed never to change.

He had been a pretty boy rich kid when Ben Raines had whipped his ass back in Louisiana, long before the Great War, and he was still a pretty man . . . and just as vain. He hated Ben Raines, but not to the point of it being all-consuming.

Lance Ashley Lanier had long forgotten just why he hated Ben so, but that was no matter. He was content to just hate. It made him feel good.

Oh, yeah! Now he remembered. Ben Raines had insulted his sister, Fran comhe couldn't recall just what the insult was-and Ashley had called the man out. Big mistake on his part. Raines

didn't fight fair. Ben had stomped the shit out of him and to make matters worse, had done it in front of witnesses. It had all been so humiliating. Ashley had been a su-per-duper football hero in school. Super-duper

football players were not used to getting the snot kicked out of them by trashy people like Ben Raines.

Ashley sighed. Well, he thought, it was all moot, now. The great mansion he had been raised in down in Louisiana was in ruin. The last time he saw it a bunch of Mexicans had moved in and had goats grazing on the front lawn.

His sister, Fran, had taken up with Hilton Logan, the president, and had later been shot to death while screwing the secretary of state.

Ashley never could make up his mind whether Ben Raines's Death Squads had been responsible for that or if the President, Hilton Logan, had ordered it.

No matter. Hilton had been killed

by Raines's Death Squads after the Tri-States had been destroyed by government troops.

That was back in? . . . Hell, he couldn't even remember. But some points he could remember was that a lot of people, fronting a lot of armies, had tried to defeat Ben Raines over the years.

No one had ever succeeded.

He brought himself back to the present and looked with some disdain upon Sister Voleta, pacing the room and ranting and raving and cursing Ben Raines until she was so breathless she had to stop and sit down. No doubt about it, the woman was a basket case, all right. But a nut with thousands of

followers. His own army paled in comparison with the troops of Sister Voleta.

And he knew what would be the first words out of her mouth when she caught her breath.

She had never disappointed him before and she didn't disappoint him this time.

"I hate Ben Raines!" she screamed.

Two days had passed since Ben had ordered his troops to spread out, and not one move had been made against them from Sister Voleta or Ashley. Ben chose to inspect the pitifully thin line of Rebels that were stretched along the almost seventy-mile sector that was his to defend.

About fifteen Rebels to the mile, he mused, enjoying a little game of mental arithmetic. Or one Rebel every three hundred and fifty-two feet, if he had chosen to spread them out in that manner, which he had not.

What he had done was blow bridges and overpasses on secondary roads from Highway 24 in the northernmost part of his sector, all the way down to just below Highway 50 to the south of him.

He knew Voleta had people watching him from a distance, so he loaded up West's people in trucks and sent them north, all the way up to Ike's sector. The trucks then promptly turned around, with West's mercenaries lying down out of sight in the canvas-covered beds, and dropped them off in the center of Columbia comor what was left of the city.

Ben pulled most of his people into Jefferson City and waited.

"Don't you see what he's done?" Ashley wanted to scream the words at Voleta; he struggled to keep his voice calm. "It's the most obvious trap I have ever

seen. He's left us two options, and only two options. We can only go in two ways, Interstate Seventy or Highway Fifty. He's crippled the bridges and overpasses on every other road."

"There is a flaw in that logic, Ashley,"

Voleta pointed out.

"What?"

"Ben Raines is sitting down there in Jefferson City with less than a thousand Rebels comfar less than a thousand, for we know he's put outposts all up and down Highway Sixty-three. Correct?"

"Yes, that is correct. I would think that Raines probably has less than seven hundred

Rebels in Jefferson City."

"The nigger general has his people down south of Jefferson City with the fresh battalion from Base Camp One, right?"

"That is correct, Voleta."

"The Russian and the Englishman and the two new battalions of Rebels are off chasing Villar and Khamsin and Parr, right?"

"That is correct."

"Our own people saw, with their own eyes, the mercenary, West, and his men move into Ike's sector, right?"

Ashley sighed. Something about that move had caused a warning bell to ring in his head. He knew that Ben Raines liked to take chances, liked to tempt the Gods of Fate ... or make people think he was doing that. But he couldn't deny the obvious. West had moved into Ike's sector.

"Yes, Voleta, that is fact."

"So even you will have to admit that Ben Raines is alone with less than a thousand personnel."

"It looks that way, Voleta."

"We leave token forces north and south, Ashley, and we throw everything we have against Raines in the city.

There is nothing to stop us from being vic-

torious.

Nothing except the trick that Ben Raines has up his sleeve, Ashley thought. But for the life of him --

and his life was what he was betting-he could not think of what it might be.

He pointed out the one thing it might be. "Gas, Voleta."

"I thought of that. And rejected it."

"On what basis?"

"I spoke to the Gods last night."

"Oh, shit, Voleta! You're no more of a witch than I am a warlock! Give me something real on which to base commiting my people in this."

"Ashley," she spoke the words contemptuously, "I hardly think that piddling little battalion of yours would make the slightest bit of difference in the outcome of this campaign."

Ashley stiffened at the slur upon his men and himself.

"If that is the way you feel, Voleta, I can certainly take my . . . piddling little battalion and move on."

"As you wish, Ashley." Her words were as cold as her heart was evil.

"Then I must wish you good luck, and good day, Sister Voleta."

"Good-bye, Ashley. I and my people will get along just fine, so don't worry."

Ashley was sorely tempted to say, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what happens to you." But he knew that would have been pushing his luck with Voleta.

Voleta watched the man leave her headquarters, located some fifty miles west of Jefferson City. She felt nothing at seeing him leave.

Ashley Lanier was a pompous coward, and those were his good points.

"Screw you, Voleta," Ashley muttered,

safety outside her HO.. "Crazy bitch. I hope I never have to look upon your face again."

He drove to his headquarters and gathered his commanders around him. "We're getting out of here," he told them. "Voleta has gone totally around the bend and is going to get herself and everybody connected with her killed."

The leader of the outlaw motorcycle group that had remained with Ashley after seeing his people slaughtered by Ben and his Rebels in Wyoming and Montana only a few months before, walked in, hearing the last part of Ashley's statement.

"As usual, Ashley, I don't agree with you ... at least not all of what you said," Satan told him. "Me and my bunch is stayin' with the broad."

"That's fine with me, Satan. It's your damn funeral. She's crazy."

Satan shrugged. "Hell, I know that. You just remember this: I'm gonna kill you someday, pretty boy, and don't you forget it."

"How can I? You keep reminding me of it, you . .

1. lout!"

Satan laughed and walked away.

In his CP in Jefferson City, Ben leaned back and sipped at a mug of coffee. "Come on, Voleta, take the bait. Our son is not here now, so Buddy doesn't have to see me kill you.

Come on, you crazy witch. Come on!"

Buddy Raines grunted as a sharp pain grew behind his eyes. Then the pain faded.

"What's wrong, son?" Dan asked, looking at him.

Buddy looked at the man. "You know I am marked, Colonel?"

"I know. I'm not sure what it means, but I've heard you mention it a time or two to your father."

"It means there are times I know what is about to happen. Not often, but at times."

"And what is happening now, boy?"

"I must return to my father, Colonel comnow!"

To his surprise, Dan did not argue the request. "All right, Buddy. Take your Rat Team and head on back. I know you well enough to know that if you didn't believe it important, you wouldn't ask. But I don't know how your father is going to take this."

"If I get there in time, my father is going to rant and rave and cuss and wave his arms all about."

"If you get there in time? In time for what, son?"

But Buddy was gone in a run toward his Jeep, yelling for his team to get their shit together and come on!

Dan lifted a map. Buddy had a good four to five hundred miles to go. All the way down through what had once been the state of Iowa.

"Godspeed, boy," Dan said.

"Buddy did what?" Ben roared.

"Don't yell at the messenger, Ben,"

Jerre told him.

"I am only telling you what Dan Gray

radioed in to communications about ten minutes ago."

Ben glared at her. She smiled sweetly at him.

All his roaring and glaring didn't have any effect on Jerre; it never had.

"Why in the hell would Buddy do some damn fool thing like that?"

"He didn't say. You can ask Buddy when he gets here."

"I damn sure will!"

"Calm down, Ben. Calm down. How's your blood pressure?"

"My blood pressure is fine ... at least it is until members of this army start disobeying my orders. Goddamnit, Jerre, I'm trying

to pull the boy's mother into a trap so I can kill her. That's why I sent Buddy with Dan. So he wouldn't have to witness this."

"I know, Ben. But don't you remember telling me that Buddy said he felt he would be the one to stop his mother. That he knew these things somehow. Maybe Buddy feels that you are in danger. Real danger."

Ben sat down behind the old, battered desk and drummed his fingertips on the desktop. With an effort, he calmed himself. "Well, hell, I guess I can't fault the boy for trying to protect me, can I?" Without waiting for a reply, he said, "And I'm reasonably sure he asked Dan's permission to leave." Ben shrugged. "It's done.

Now I just hope Buddy makes the run in one piece. He'll be traveling through some dangerous country."

"Buddy has a lot of you in him, Ben. He'll make it."

Ben smiled. "I'm just damn glad he's got more of me in him than his mother. Buddy would have made one very dangerous enemy."

Ill

Dan had set his CP up just south of

Minneapolis. Buddy took his Rat Team and pulled out, driving hard down Interstate 35. He did not stop until he reached the Iowa line. There, he was forced to use pumps to bring up gas from old storage tanks, and to wait until the gas was filtered for impurities.

One of his team had climbed on top of a two story building and was inspecting the terrain through binoculars when thin fingers of smoke caught his eyes.

"Company," he called. "To the east about five miles."

Buddy squatted on the old littered main street of the town. Colonel Gray had concluded that Villar had broken up his army into smaller teams and was moving the smaller units westward; platoon-sized units would be more difficult to detect and more stood a better chance of making it through in that manner.

Buddy felt that his mother would launch an all-out offensive against his father very soon, and Buddy felt he had to be there. But as a soldier, he was obligated to check out the smoke the lookout had detected.

At the call from the sentry, the other members of his team had stopped their building of fires to cook the evening meals and make coffee.

Buddy pointed at two Rat Team members. "You and you. Check it out and shoot us a line to follow and radio in the heading. Then maintain radio silence until you get a visual. If it's Villar's men, give us three clicks a couple of times and stay put. We'll join you. Paint up and take off."

After his team had put on night camouflage, Buddy hid the vehicles and sat down to eat cold rations and wait for the signal. It soon came: three

clicks over the radio, repeated twice.

Darkness had dropped around them as they moved out, shrouded them in gloom. The night was cloudy, the humidity high, the sky threatening rain. The Rat Team was armed with rocket launchers, grenades, and automatic weapons. Buddy carried an old Thompson SMG, identical to the one his father had carried for years. Ben had put it aside, choosing an Ml4, after so many people were beginning to view the old Chicago Piano as something more than what it really was ... as many viewed still viewed Ben.

As powerful as he was, Buddy carried the heavy, drum-fed weapon as effortlessly as a sack of marsh-mallows. The .45-caliber spitter was awesome at close range, the big slugs capable of stopping nearly anything they hit.

Taking the point, Buddy shot his azimuth and followed the course. Anything that might jingle or jangle on the team had either been removed or taped. Buddy's Rat Team was made up of young men and women in the height of physical conditioning, and they could and did move like silent wraiths in the night.

They moved across fields that had not been plowed in years, through timber that grew tall, now that man was no longer destroying it in the name of progress. They were conscious of the eyes of forest animals on them as they moved through the animal's kingdom. The natural inhabitants of the woods had nothing to fear from the Rebels, and they seemed to know that.

Rebels would kill a forest critter only in self-defense or if they had run out of food and no chance of getting resupplied.

They came up on the two-person scout team abruptly and went belly down on the cool earth.

They talked in sign language whenever possible, us-

ing a system the Woods Children had shown the Rebels years back.

The camp was a thousand yards ahead. Guards were few and security was lax. Probably a hundred men in the camp. They were eating their evening meal.

Buddy told his team to swing in a half circle around the camp, then once more he took the point.

He came up on a guard just as the man was lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. A breech of security that his father would have had the offender court-martialed for.

Buddy cut the man's throat with a big, razor-sharp knife and softly and silently lowered the bloody, cooling body to the earth. All around the half circle, other members of his team were taking out the guards with silent kills.

Buddy waved a team member with a rocket launcher up to him and patted the weapon. The woman smiled and filled the tube with death.

A nightbird seemed to sing a gentle tune, the melody floating through the darkness. But it was not a nightbird and the tune did not signify anything gentle.

A bird answered the first call. A bird that was earthbound and carried violent death in its hands. One by one, the Rat Team members called out that they were in position.

The men around the fires paid no attention to the bird-calls. Perhaps it was because most of them were not a part of this land; had not been born in this country that was once called America and were not familiar with the nightbirds' sound. Perhaps they were just tired and more than likely frightened.

The outlaws and terrorists would soon know no more fear and they could rest forever.

Buddy tapped the young woman on the shoulder and she fired the rocket. The rocket, an antipersonnel type invented by Ben's

weapons' experts down at Base Camp One, turned a dozen men into bloody, mangled, nonhuman looking lumps. A second after the first rocket was fired, the other rocket-wielding Rat Team members fired and the campsite was transformed into a fiery hell on earth for those enemy troops gathered there.

The weapons set on full auto, the Rat Team members made very short work out of any who survived the rocket blasts and had the bad timing to stand up.

The Rat Team ceased their fire and bellied down on the ground and waited, motionless. Only a few moans came from the burning camp. The Rat Team waited.

"No more," a man called out in a heavily accented voice. "No more-please!"

The Rat Team lay still and very quiet. Another man began crying in the firelit night.

"We need a few prisoners to take to the Eagle," Buddy said.

"Vehicles?" a Rat Team member asked.

"No. We don't have the t@lme to check them out for prolonged road use. But jwe will use them to get back to town. Grab some prisoners and we'll move some miles down the road before making camp. Go!"

They drove twenty-five miles south before stopping to make camp for the night. There, they patched up the prisoners as best they could and tied them securely.

Buddy remarked that they were certainly a sorry-looking bunch.

"Go to Europe," one said. "And you'll leave looking a lot sorrier. If you leave at all."

Buddy knelt down beside the man. His wounds had been only superficial. "What is in Europe that frightened you so?"

"Chaos. It's ten times worse than here. Those you call the Night People -- Kannibales -- are everywhere. They surfaced just after the Great War and began taking over. They have huge farms where they breed humans ... for food. In other parts of the Continent, there are warlords and land barons and God only knows what else. Each with their own army. There are thousands of people living in the countryside who were burned and disfigured -- both mentally and physically by the blasts. Their genes were affected. Their offspring are twice as horrible. There are parts of the countryside where no one dares venture. It is indescribable. One has to see it to fully understand the terror of it all."

"You're German?"

"Yes."

"You know Hans Strobel?"

"Yes. He's a good man. Too good a man to ever have become involved with us. He's alive?"

"Yes. Then why did he join Lan?"

"To get away from the labor camps. To remain there would have meant death for him. It was a simple matter of survival."

That jibed with everything Hans had said. Buddy had initially sized him up as being basically a good person after only a few minutes of conversation with the man. But to have corroboration from several different sources was always good.

"And you?" Buddy asked.

"What?"

"Are you a good man?"

"I am a soldier. I have been a soldier all my life. Since I was fifteen. I have spent twenty-five years soldiering with one army or another."

"Are you going to tell me that with all that experience behind you, you joined Lan Villar to sur-

vive?"

"No. I could have survived in Europe.

I am a survivor. One does not spend

twenty-five years at war without learning to survive. I joined Villar because he was a winner."

Buddy tapped his own massive chest. "You are looking at another one."

The man smiled. "I got that impression."

"Are you a true leopard?"

For a moment, the man looked puzzled, trying to understand what Buddy meant. Then it came to him. "You mean can I change my spots?"

"Yes."

He hesitated. "I honestly don't know. From what I have been able to learn about the Rebel movement, I don't think I could live under Ben Raines's rules." :

"That's an honest reply. Tejl me this: if you were set free, would you rejoin Villar?"

"I can answer that quickly. No. But not because of any moralistic reason. I would not rejoin him because the man has changed from a winner to a loser. I can see the change in him. Villar has never known defeat.

What happened in Illinois marked him."

"Hear me well," Buddy said. "Whether you live or die depends on how cooperative you

are when we reach my father's sector. And give some thought to joining the Rebels. Give a lot of thought to it. People who don't conform to what few laws we have are outcasts. They receive no help from us comnone at all. No medical help, nothing; only for the very young, which we take from them. It's a harsh rule of my father's, but in these times, a necessary one. He's trying to rebuild a nation from out of the ashes of ruin."

The German nodded. "I owe Villar nothing. I gave him years of loyalty; now he is near defeat. I know all the signs of that. So I will be as cooperative as I can be with my interrogators.

But General Raines probably knows as much about Villar's plans as I do."

Buddy nodded his head in the murk of darkness. "Our way of life is probably not as restrictive as you have been led to believe. Anyone who really tries can adjust very quickly to our philosophy. Think about it."

The man smiled. "With my hands and feet bound, there is not much else I can do, is there?"

"Oh, yes," Buddy returned the smile. "You can die if you try to escape."

"Patrols in the western part of Missouri report that a battalion-size group is moving westward out of the central part of Missouri,"

Corrie told Ben. "They appear to be

well-armed and organized."

"That would be Ashley" Ben said. "He's not going to take the bait I offered. Advise our patrols not to make contact."

"Yes, sir."

"Any word from Buddy?"

"He'll be here by noon tomorrow. He and his Rat Team destroyed about a platoon of Villar's men last night. They have prisoners."

"No movement reported out of Voleta's people?"

"Nothing. Generals McGowan and Jefferys report that all is quiet in their sectors."

"Thank you, Corrie. Have Buddy report to me when he arrives."

She left the CP, returning to her communications room down the hall.

Ben's constant shadow, Jersey, sat across the room from him, her M-16 across her knees. Jerre was with Doctor Chase, at the hospital. Cooper

stuck his head into the room.

"Thermopolis to see you, General."

"Send him in."

"Getting bored?" Ben asked, after coffee was poured and the men seated.

"Peace has never been boring to me, Ben. But it has been rare over the past few years. Do you think this Sister Voleta is going to take the bait and at-

tack?"

"Oh, yes. She hates me so much she's blind to anything else."

"This will not be as easy as St. Louis, will it?"

"No. This will be house to house and hand to hand in many instances."

"The reasoning behind that?"

"I want her in this city and I want to personally see her dead body. That kook and her followers have been a thorn in my side for years. I want the thorn plucked out and destroyed."

"And then? . . his

"We move against Malone. I want all the major resistance forces against us crushed by the end of summer. That does not include, of course, the creepies still in the cities."

"And then? . . ."

"Maybe Europe. I don't know. That all

depends on whether some new, as yet

unknown to us, force appears on the horizon."

"May I make a suggestion?"

"Of course."

"Alaska."

"What about it?"

"Oil. I know that everything was shut down after the government fell . . . for the second time. That area needs to be reopened."

"I agree with you. And I've given it a lot of thought. Are you volunteering to settle up there?"

Thermopolis smiled. "No. Emphatically, no.

But I wouldn't mind a short visit."

"Neither would I. All right. Let's do some thinking on it. Tell you what: why don't you pick some people and start prowling the city's libraries during this lull in the fighting. One thing about looters: they seldom steal books. See what you can find concerning Alaska."

"Me and my big mouth. I might have known you'd give me a damn job."

"Your idea."

"We all make mistakes." But it was said with a smile. He drained his coffee cup and stood up.

"I'll get right on it." He started for the door.

"Thermopolis?"

The man turned around.

"A lot of buildings have not been one hundred percent checked. You people go in armed and careful.

Another reason for that is I don't know when Voleta is going to strike. We've got to be ready at all times."

"I understand."

"Tell Corrie to get you some trucks, and some help rounding up crates." Ben smiled. "I always take books wherever I find them."

"I will admit, Ben Raines, that you do have some redeeming qualities."

"All right, boy," Ben said to Buddy. "Let's have it."

Buddy had been hustled to his father's CP before his feet were firmly on the ground.

"My team destroyed one full platoon of Villar's men about twenty-five or so miles inside Iowa."

"That's not what I mean."

"We saw no other signs of the enemy on our move south."

"That's good to know. But not what I wanted to hear from you."

"General Striganov and Five and Six

battalions are in place."

"I

know

that, boy! I am in radio contact with them. Why in the hell did you pull out from Dan's group and come here?"

"To help you fight my mother."

"You know I deliberately sent you away from this fight."

"Yes. I know. But my place is here. I sense it. So here I am."

"And you are going to do what?"

"Take over your personal security."

"I appreciate the thought, boy, but I don't need a goddamn nanny! I've been taking care of myself for a good many of my fifty years. Oh, hell!" He waved his hand. "Go get something to eat."

Buddy turned to leave.

"And close the damn door."

"Yes, sir." Smiling, Buddy stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him.

"That wasn't too bad," Beth said.

"Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. He didn't try to spank me."

They all got a laugh at the mental image of Ben with Buddy over his knee, applying a belt to the young man's butt.

Buddy looked at Jerre. She and Cooper and Cor-rie were playing cards. "There has been no word from my mother?"

"No. We know she's going to strike. We just don't know when. Ashley has left her, though.

He and his men were seen in Western Missouri."

"They'll be linking up with Malone, then. And we don't have a large enough force west of here to stop them."

"Your father doesn't seem to be too worried about Ashley" Beth said. "He just wants this business with your mother over and done with."

"She's hard to kill," the heavily muscled young man said. "But she's evil and must be stopped. She is past redemption."

"What do you mean, Buddy?" Jerre asked.

He sighed and rubbed his chin with a big hand.

He needed a shave and wanted a shower. He and his Rat Team had been pushing themselves hard on the drive south, stopping only when absolutely necessary.

"I mean, Jerre, that I think if Voleta is to be stopped, I will have to be the one to stop her." "I hope it doesn't come to that, Buddy."

"It's already come to that, Jerre. I know it." He walked out of the room.

"Still no contact with Grumman and his platoon?"

Villar asked.

"No, sir" the radio operator told him. "And I've tried repeatedly."

"They've bought it. We can scratch them off the roster." He lifted a map and studied it closely. His forward recc teams had radioed back distressing news. Raines had shifted his people, stretching them all the way to the Canadian line. The Rebels were thin, very thin, but still a force to be reckoned with. Splitting his people up into small groups had seemed, at first, to be a good idea. Now he was having second thoughts. Villar sighed heavily and shook his head. "We've got to mount an offensive and punch through. That's all we can do."

Again, Villar studied the map. Finally he nodded his head. "We'll start pulling all units in Wisconsin to our position. They'll move only at night, using slit headlamps. That will be slow, but will lessen the danger. We won't cross into Minnesota here. That's the first route in north of the river and that would be too obvious. We'll make our crossing just south of Duluth. Well punch through and do it fast and hard. Cutting north, we'll hit Highway Two and stay on it. Karl, tell all units south of the Wisconsin line to cut east for a hundred or so miles, then

drive south just as fast as they can. Get under the Rebels' position and cut west. We'll make the link in Idaho. Or in hell," he added

grimly. "Whichever comes first."

The morning after Buddy's return, he stepped out of his quarters, relaxed and refreshed after a good night's sleep. He could not feel his mother's pre-sense so he concluded the Rebels had bought yet another day of waiting. No one laughed when Buddy talked about his being marked. The Rebels knew that even Ben Raines believed there was some truth in it.

And they all knew why Buddy had returned.

After breakfast, Buddy got in his Jeep and drove to the westernmost section of the city under Rebel control and parked, getting out.

"Yo, Buddy!" a sentry called, looking around his sandbagged position. He was not there to die if Vo-leta attacked. Just radio in and get the hell back to friendlier lines.

Buddy called him by name and walked over to the position. "Anything going on?"

"Dead, man. Coffee?"

"Yes, that would be nice."

Buddy took powerful binoculars and scanned the sentry's perimeter. The terrain leaped into his view. There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere he looked. He lowered the binoculars.

"Did my father Claymore the area?"

The Rebel smiled. "General Raines didn't do nothin," man. That area is as clean as a needle.

If Voleta attacks, I got orders to call in and bug out."

"He wants her to attack," Buddy muttered.

"He wants this to come to a head so he can pinch the boil and expel the corruption."

"That's why he wanted you out of here, Buddy. Aw, he isn't pissed 'cause you came back-and I got that from close to him. He just wanted to spare you the . . . you know."

"I know. The death of my mother. She is meaningless to me now. She is a cancer that must be cut out and destroyed. I knew that even before I left her."

"Did you?" The sentry shook his head. "No.

Forget I even said anything."

"Ever think of killing her when I had the chance? Yes. Yes, I did. It was the Old Man, my grandfather, who prevented me from doing that.

More than once. And I have never admitted that to anyone."

"It won't go any further, Buddy."

"It's all right if it does. It's time for me to be truthful. God knows I'm going to have to face up to it all very soon. Tonight. Tomorrow night. The next night.

But soon." He faced the young sentry. "When they attack, you get out very quickly. Use the radio in the Jeep to call in. Don't waste time staying and playing hero. And above all: don't let any of them take you alive. The Old Man shielded me from most of what those people are capable of doing, but I saw enough to know it would be an insult to a rabid dog to call them that."

"I can just imagine what they would do to a Rebel."

"No, you can't," Buddy told him. "Not in your wildest screaming nightmares. My mother likes fire, and sharp knives. And she can make the act of dying much more preferable to living. She has kept many prisoners alive for days, slowing skinning them. She is pure evil comif that connection is grammatically acceptable. Her brain is pus and her heart belongs to Satan."

The young sentry shivered as chill bumps covered his flesh, although the day was very warm. "This Old Man you talk of ... he helped you get away?"

"Yes."

"What happened to him?"

"She tortured him to death, so I later found out."

"What kin was he to her?"

Buddy's eyes turned cold. "He was her father."

The scattered men of the terrorist armies made their night runs to the north with much caution, taking back country roads, avoiding any town that might be populated with anyone with a radio who could call into Ben Raines. And that was getting very nearly impossible to avoid.

"The bastard has outposts all over the fucking nation," Villar cursed Ben. "He's stuck up a clean zone everywhere a hog roots."

"And it's just as bad in Canada," Khamsin told him. "The damn Canucks put a gun in a child's hand practically at birth."

"Blame that on Ben Raines," Kenny said.

"That's the one thing he and my father agreed on."

Villar consulted a map. They had miles to go and it looked like everybody that was coming in, had arrived. It was obvious that more than half of the terrorists had elected to push south. With a sigh of frustration, he flung the map to the floor and began cursing Ben Raines until he was breathless.

Kenny read the man's anguish accurately. "We don't have the men to punch a hole, do we?"

"I don't think so. Not without losing more than we can afford to lose."

Khamsin spoke softly, and no one in the room doubted him for an instant. "I will never surrender to Ben Raines. I will die fighting him. Allah be praised!"

Villar looked at him, a faint light of amusement in his eyes. "How in the hell do you justify calling

on your God when you've spread unnecessary death and destruction all over the damn world, Khamsin?"

"I am a believer, that's why?" The man seemed surprised he would even be asked such a question. "There is a place in heaven for me."

"Horseshit!" Kenny said. "People like you fry my ass. At least me and Lan aren't hypocrites about what we do and what we are. I got a spot in hell reserved for me, and so does Lan. And if the truth be known, so do you, Khamsin. So do you."

The outburst didn't startle or upset

Khamsin. He merely shrugged them off as words out of the mouth of an infidel. Like so many people of all faiths, Khamsin was smug about his convictions. He felt in his heart that when he died he would follow the golden path to sit by the side of Allah. What these two nonbelievers thought meant absolutely nothing to him. And he certainly wasn't going to debate his beautiful religion with anyone who boasted that after death they would have a seat next to Satan.

"I will lead the assault against the lines of the Rebels," Khamsin said. "Show me where you wish to break through, and it shall be done."

Villar studied the man for a long moment, then slowly nodded his head. The fool believed he could do it, so maybe he could. Let him lose his men trying or succeeding. Villar pointed to the map. "Right here, Khamsin. Right here."

The Hot Wind looked at the spot. "It shall be done. Praise Allah!"

"When nothing is heard from that bastard, Villar"

Dan spoke to Georgi Striganov, "brace

yourself. He's certainly up to something."

"I agree," the Russian said. "He's had me worried

ever since he dropped out of sight."

"The bridges are covered on the west side and wired to blow. Villar will have guessed that. He won't try the bridges. We have people all along the river and they report no sign of the man. My guess is that he

his

ll try to punch through between these two spots." He pointed them out on a map. "Probably just south of Duluth. That will give him good access to this highway."

"That is by no means our strongest spot," Georgi said.

"Yes." He glanced at his watch. A couple of hours before dark. No way he could get his people up there in that time. The Interstate was in bad shape and getting worse. But Dan knew he had to try. The assault was coming tonight; he could feel it. "I'll take my people and pull out now. We'll be traveling fast, so we won't have artillery to back us."

"I'll start artillery moving north now. Just in case you're wrong about the timing."

"I pray that I am wrong. But I fear that I am correct."

Duluth was filled with creepies so the Rebels stayed well away from the city. They would deal with the cannibalistic creeps at a later date.

Khamsin and his men turned west off a state road in Wisconsin and entered Minnesota on what was left of a country road, crossing over the state line about fifteen miles south of Duluth. Only two squads of Rebels were at that point and Khamsin's men butchered them, knocking a hole in the thin line through which the terrorist armies poured into the state.

Dan was on Interstate 35, south and west of the breakthrough when he got the news.

Dan lost his cool and cut loose with a steady stream of profanity. Not so much that his prey had broken through, but for the men and women lost in the assault.

He jerked up his mic. "Rebet and Danjou join up with me," he ordered. "General Striganov, they have broken through. When Voleta hears of this, she'll attack."

"I'll start my people moving south to beef up the forces in Missouri," the Russian radioed. "Do you want the artillery I sent to continue following you?"

"That is ten-four, General. The logical route for Villar to take is Highway Two-ten,

so I'm betting he'll cut north and take Highway Two. I'm taking my people and Rebet and Danjou's forces and taking two-ten. I'll stay under him and try to cut him off somewhere along the way."

"That is affirmative, Colonel Gray. I will have the artillery cut east, following you.

Godspeed."

"It was a friggin" piece of cake," Villar said to his driver. "And I let that goddamn Libyan take it. Ill never hear the end of it."

The driver wanted to say: So what? We got across, didn't we?

But he didn't.

They crossed the Interstate, picked up Highway 33, and took that to Highway 2, cutting west.

Villar had no illusions: he knew that Dan Gray would be hot after them. Only one thing would stop Colonel Gray, and that was death. Villar also felt that if there was some sort of existence after death, if Dan Gray didn't get him in this life, he would in the next.

Villar knew something else, too; something that he had not shared at length with the others: there was no way they were going to win this fight, or any other fight against Ben Raines and the Rebels.

Raines had thought it all out and had it perfected. The son of a bitch had spent years going all over the nation, collecting every tank, every piece of artillery, and hauling it off to only he and God and a few Rebels knew where. And no one was going to win against Ben Raines without long-range artillery and tanks. And to make matters worse, Raines had done the same thing with cars and trucks too. He was more than a warrior. He was a thinker, a planner, a teacher, a philosopher, and a doer.

"We're going to look this situation over with Ma-lone," Villar said. "We might even stay awhile. But we'll eventually pull out."

"To where?" his driver asked.

"The one place that, to the best of my knowledge, Raines had never shown any interest in."

"And that is?"

"Alaska!"

"Here they come!" sentries all up and down the line shouted into their mics as Voleta's army began advancing toward Columbia and Jefferson City.

"Fall back!" the order from Ben went up and down the line.

The sentries on the east side of the river beat it back across the bridge and watched as

Voleta's forces took control of the airport.

"Airport's in their hands, now," they radioed to Ben's CP.

"Let them have it," Ben said, as much to himself as to the others in the room. "They won't do anything with it.

They damn sure don't have any planes and if they try to cross that river at night, we'll be waiting for them when they step ashore."

In Columbia, as Ben had done in Jefferson City, West had pulled his battalion into the center of the

city. Tanks had been rammed inside buildings and hidden, the muzzles of the 90mm and 105's lowered to the max. The .50-caliber machine gun emplacements were set up and heavily fortified with sandbags. Each Rebel had food enough for several days and boxes of ammo, grenades, rockets and mortar rounds.

In both cities, the Rebels waited.

Voleta halted her troops on the outskirts of the suburbs and called for a meeting of her commanders.

"Not a shot has been fired," she said. "Have we been mislead? Is Ben Raines even in the city?"

"He's there," she was told. "And we have not been mislead."

"Then why is he doing nothing?"

"Perhaps the man has lost his mind," another commander offered that. It got him a dirty look from Voleta but she let him continue. "He's placed himself in a death trap. He can't cross the Missouri River. Our people have taken control of the airport and Highway Fifty-four. . . ."

What the commander failed to realize was that Ben had heavy artillery up and down West Main and Capitol Avenue, and it was slightly less than two miles from there to the airport. Ben could annihilate Voleta's forces across the river at any time he so desired.

"dis . . As far as I can see, Sister, General Raines has put himself in a box and nailed the lid shut . . ."

Ben was in a box, all right, but it was a box of his own construction. Over the years, the Rebels had become not only the most feared guerrilla fighters anywhere in the nation comand probably around the globe comb they had also become highly expert at urban warfare. Voleta's army was made up

of dedicated men and women, but damn few true, disciplined soldiers among the bunch. They outnumbered the Rebels in this battle, but the Rebels were used to being outnumbered. They would have felt they were taking advantage of the enemy if they were on a par.

"dis . . Before you halted the advance, Sister, our troops in Columbia had penetrated well into the city limits and had met no hostile action. The city appears deserted . . ."

Columbia was anything but deserted. Like Jefferson City, it was a deadly trap waiting to be sprung.

West, limping around with a cast on his foot, had laid out his battle plans well. His mercenary troops lay still as death's touch, waiting.

"dis . . We have intercepted radio messages that tell us the Russian is on his way south, to beef up General McGowan and his troops. Sister, without Ben Raines, the Rebels will fall apart.

If we are to succeed, we must strike now, and strike hard!"

There was truth in what the man said, but still Voleta was not convinced. She knew Ben too well; knew him for the fanged poisonous snake that he was; knew how treacherous the man could be. If Ben Raines had put himself into a box, he had a hole from which to escape. She would bet her brassiere on that.

If she wore a brassiere. Which she

didn't.

And Ben had guessed accurately on another point. He had guessed that after the debacle in the Northwest, where Voleta's troops had taken a battering, she would be low on mortar rounds. And she was. She still had plenty of ammo for light weapons, but practically no rockets or mortars.

"Get those damnable motorcyclists up here," she ordered.

The leader of the bunch, Satan, stepped into the tent moments later. He didn't like this bitch, and knew she didn't like him. But for Satan's bunch, it was the best game in town, so he'd take orders from her . . . for a while longer, anyway.

"I want a recon team sent into the city, Satan. I want them to penetrate as far as Southwest Boulevard. Here!" she showed him the map.

"And report back to me."

"That ain't no sweat, lady," the huge, evil-looking biker said. "I don't even think Ben Raines is in the damn city."

"There is one way to find out," she said, smiling as sweetly as was possible for her. Her smile held all the warmth of a striking cobra. "Go in and look."

Satan stood his ground. "You know what I'm gonna do when all this shit is over, lady?"

"I couldn't possibly imagine," she replied.

"Or care," she added.

"Oh, you'll care, all right. You an ugly whore, but I think you got a couple more good fucks in you.

When this is over, me and you is gonna get it on."

She spat in his face and flung out a hand just in time to prevent the others in the tent from shooting the biker.

Laughing, Satan left the room. "Yeah,

baby," he called over his shoulder. "I might even let you get some lipstick on my dipstick."

"That is the most disgusting creature I have ever encountered, Sister," a commander said. "Why don't you let me shoot him?"

"Because while he is a loathsome being, we do need him," she said sourly. "At least for a little while longer."

"Or some stain on my thing!" Satan hollered from the outside.

"Ashley was a coward," a woman said. "But at least he would show some respect for you."

"Ashley was a fool," Voleta said, as the sounds of motorcycles leaving the camp roared into her ears. "But I have to admit, he was a pleasant fool."

"Leave the light on, baby!" Satan screamed as he roared past. "I might decide to jolly you tonight."

Voleta grimaced and gave the voice the finger.

"Don't fire on the bikers," Ben warned his people. "Don't make a sound. Keep your heads down and let's see how far they penetrate."

The Rebels burrowed deeper in the homes and buildings and dark alleyways. Most had changed from lizard and tiger-stripe to dark urban BDU'S.

With the moonless night, they were almost invisible.

The team of bikers split up, some traveling on Highway 50, others turning onto Stadium Boulevard and then onto Edgewood, with all of them stopping at Southwest Boulevard. Satan waited at the intersection for his bikers to regroup.

"Shit, Satan!" one said. "There ain't nobody left in this town."

Satan looked all around him, doing his best to peer through the darkness. "Shut "em down," he ordered.

The bikers cut their engines and the following silence was heavy.

"Fan out," Satan said. "Inspect the

buildings." Satan left his Hog and walked across the road, to a line of office buildings.

Cautiously, he pushed open the door with the muzzle of his Uzi and clicked on a flashlight, the beam strong in the murk.

The narrow beam of light picked up the litter on the floor. It showed him the unmarked dust and undisturbed cobwebs. What it did not show him was how the Rebels had entered the building with-

out disturbing anything.

Ladders. Few Rebels were on the ground floor anywhere in the city. They had climbed up ladders to the second and third floors and set up their machine gun emplacements, then another team removed the ladders and went on to another location.

The oudaw bikers inspected a dozen buildings along the road and found nothing to indicate the Rebels were anywhere close.

Which is exactly what [Ben wanted them to think.

Soon, if all went according to plan, Ben and his Rebels would not be the only ones in a box. But Ben and Rebels would be in control of that box.

"It was a damn trick all the time!" Satan said, kicking at a beer can that had laid in the street for years, still just as shiny as the day it rolled off the line.

"What you mean?"

"I bet you Ben Raines ain't even in this city.

I bet you he left a few soldier boys and girls downtown and he hauled his ass off to the north, chasin" that Villar-what's-his-name."

"I bet you right, Satan."

The outlaw biker lifted his walkie-talkie.

"It's clean in here," he radioed. "They might be some Rebs downtown, but they ain't any out here. Come on in."

"Fall back," Voleta ordered. "We'll enter the city at dawn."

"That woman beats all I ever seen," Satan said. "If she don't screw no better than she gives orders, I don't think I want any of it."

"She's ordered the bikers back," Gorrie told Ben, after monitoring the transmissions. "They'll enter the city at dawn."

"Stay on the tach frequency and order no fires, no lights of any kind. Maintain noise

discipline. Tell them to get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day."

At dawn, Voleta ordered her troops into the cities of Jefferson City and Columbia.

"Take what few Rebels are in the cities alive," she ordered. "I want to torture them.

We can have days of pleasure with them."

Satan shook his head. It wasn't that he minded seeing people tortured comhe kind of liked it, especially when it lasted a long time and they screamed a lot comb with Rebels this close around them, wherever they were, it just seemed like a waste of valuable time.

"It's chancy from here on in," Ben said to his staff. "At any time, one of those kooks could look up and see a gun emplacement or the muzzle of a tank; or a Rebel could sneeze. Anything might happen. We can't wait much longer."

"You were very lucky last night," Voleta told Satan. "The Rebels are famous for

booby-trapping buildings." She turned to her radio operator. "Tell the people to stay out of the buildings. Inspect them through the windows."

Ben listened to the orders being given and smiled.

"That's right, Voleta. Play it cautiously, you witch. And come on in."

Buddy's face was impassive as he stood in the command post, listening to his father. This had been a very chancy move for his father to make, and not one that the other Rebel commanders liked. But so far, it was working.

"The points of the column have moved past Boonville Road, Ellis Avenue, and have reached

Fifty-four near the downtown," Corrie informed them.

"Let them come," Ben said, his voice calm.

"Father," Buddy said. "Taking chances is one thing.

But we are going to be

smelling

the stink of them in a moment."

"That's right," Ben said cheerfully.

The sounds of the advancing vehicles could now be clearly heard on the second floor of the CP.

"Goddamnit, Raines!" the voice of Doctor Chase came over the scrambled tach frequency.

"The bastards are outside my hospital. Will you please give the orders to open fire?"

"Tell him staying here was his idea" Ben told Corrie. "And to shut up."

Through the dirty window on the second floor, Ben could see the troops of Voleta moving down the center of the street. "I love dealing with amateurs," he said with a smile.

"Corrie, give the orders to open fire, please."

"With the utmost of pleasure, sir," she said, with just a touch of nervousness in her voice.

Ben smashed the window with the butt of his old Thunder Lizard and emptied the clip at the followers of the Ninth Order.

Voleta lost nearly half her troops in the first thirty seconds as the Rebels popped up and gave her a taste of Rebel justice. Rockets turned the vehicles into fireballs, 90mm and 105 howitzers, firing at nearly point-blank range, literally blew the enemy trucks off their tires and sent the trucks and those inside thundering into hell, the bodies mangled and burned beyond recognition.

The .223, .308, .50, and .45 caliber

slugs tore into flesh. The streets and gutters of the city ran red and slick with blood.

There was no place for the troops of the Ninth Order to escape. Ben had plugged all the holes with his orders to open fire.

Those troops of the Ninth Order laying back outside the city limits did not escape, nor did the followers of Voleta who sat

smugly within the perimeters of the airport across the river.

Heavy artillery began shattering the morning, the booming of shells impacting against the ground rattled the city. The gunners had the range and dropped them in with deadly accuracy.

In Columbia, those troops of Voleta met the same fate at the hands of Colonel West's mercenaries. Ben had given the orders that no one was to be left alive. No prisoners taken.

He wanted to end this scourge upon the earth now. He wanted to crush the Ninth Order . . . crush it so badly it could never recover. Wipe it from the face of the earth and have the pleasure -- perverse though it might be comof looking down into the dead face of Voleta.

Corrie kept glancing at him, wondering when Ben was going to call for a cease fire.

But Ben was not. His Rebels comand they were his comhad been battling Sister Voleta and the Ninth Order for years. He would let his troops vent their anger with hot lead until it had passed.

He walked out of the room, turned, and went down the hall, to the old fire door that faced an alley coman alley now littered with the bodies of those who chose to follow Sister Voleta.

Then he saw her, standing in a doorway, looking up at him.

"You son of a bitch!" she screamed at him, her words just audible over the roar of gunfire.

She lifted a pistol and pulled the trigger.

The glass exploded where Ben had stood an instant before.

On his back on the floor, Ben kicked the old door open and crawled out onto the catwalk, cutting his arms and legs on the broken glass.

He peeked over the edge of the catwalk. Voleta had disappeared.

He looked back over his shoulder. No one in the building had noticed the lone shot and apparently, no one had any idea Ben was anywhere other than safe.

They probably thought he went to the bathroom.

Ben caught a glimpse of a black robe in the shadows of a doorway and began bouncing lead around the small enclosure. He heard a scream and then something lurched out of the doorway, staggered, and fell to the bloody alleyway.

Voleta.

She was down, but far from out and far from staying down for very long.

The woman jumped to her feet and ran across the alley, into a building.

Ben started to use his walkie-talkie, to advise his people that the witch was near. He decided against it. Ben reached up and slipped a grenade from his battle harness, pulling the pin and holding it down. This was his fight, and he wanted to settle it personally.

Ben leaned out of the metal catwalk as far as he could and tossed the grenade into a window just opposite the door he'd seen Voleta enter. When it blew, it set her robe on fire and she came screaming out of the building, running blindly with her hair burning.

She ran into a brick wall and fell backward, just as a main battle tank picked that time to round the corner. Ben could not turn away, even though he really did not want to see the treads crush the life from her.

In an effort to get away from the burning woman, the tank swerved and slammed into an old brick building, knocking part of the wall down. Ben stood on the catwalk and looked down at what was left of Voleta: two bare legs, from the knees down, protruding out from under the bricks, in a puddle of blood. From where Ben stood, it looked like her feet were dirty.

Jerre told him that Buddy had gone to the place where his mother was lying under several tons of bricks.

He had stood silent for a long time, and then knelt down by her bare legs. Jerre felt uncomfortable watching him and had walked away, leaving him alone.

She had not looked back.

The Ninth Order was no more. If the Rebels found any alive, they shot them where they lay.

Leadfoot told Ben that Satan and his bunch had got away. They headed west out of the city.

Ben ordered his Rebels out of Jefferson City and Columbia and told his demolition people to bring the cities down to ruin.

He had not seen Buddy all that day.

He waved Jerre over to him. "See if you can find Buddy, will you, Jerre?"

"He's getting his team squared away, Ben.

Said you'd probably want him to take the point and he wanted to be ready to go."

"How is he?"

"Seems to be fine. A little quieter than usual, but that's to be expected. He knew his mother was evil, but her death still was a jolt to him."

"Sure it was. I wish I'd had a

dozer push those bricks off of her just to make sure she was dead."

"Good God, Ben! A

tank

ran over her!"

"Yeah. At least it ran over her legs. But I'll al-

ways wonder."

Jerre shook her head. "If she survived that, Ben, I'll believe she really is a witch. Do we rest now?"

"No. We can't take the time. We're pulling out within the hour. The demolition crews can catch up with us along the way. I've already told Corrie to send Ike and Georgi on their way behind Dan.

Cecil is to link up with us anytime now and we'll head west."

Behind them, dull explosions began erupting throughout the city and buildings began coming down in great clouds of dust.

Buddy rode up and got out.

"Son," Ben said. "Your Rat Team about ready to pull out?"

"All ready, sir."

There was something in Buddy's voice that sounded odd to Jerre. "You want me to leave, Buddy? So you can talk to your father alone?"

"Oh, no! No. Please stay. Father," he said with a sigh. "I don't believe my mother is dead."

It took several seconds for that to register with Ben.

"What did you say, son?"

He repeated it.

"Son, I shot her. Personally. Then I tossed a grenade in on her and she was a ball of fire when she bounced off that wall. Then a goddamn tank ran over her. Jesus, boy. Nobody could survive that!"

"She did. I don't know for how long, but she survived it."

"After I walked away, Buddy," Jerre said, "leaving you alone with her. What did you do?"

"Reached down and pulled on her feet. The tank obviously severed her limbs at the knees. I felt sort of ... well, stupid, standing there holding her by the feet. Sort of macabre. I dug into the bricks. She wasn't there, Father. I dug all the way to

where the wall was. There was a trail of blood leading into the building. I looked all over the place for her. She was not there, Father.

She's beaten us again. She's alive."

Dan and the Canadian forces, commanded by Rebet and Danjou were hot after what was left of the terrorist army as they moved west. But despite everything Colonel Gray did, he could not catch up with them. They had too big a head start. With both sides traveling night and day, Villar and his people managed to stay a good half a day in front of the Rebels.

Striganov and his people headed west on 212, taking them through South Dakota. Ike and his battalion took off on Highway 36, heading through Kansas.

Cecil linked up with Ben and West and they began their trek westward on Interstate 70. Those units south of Dan would gradually work their way north.

Seven Battalion, always short, had been incorporated into Five and Six, beefing them up.

Villar, knowing that with the slaughter of Voleta's troops, every Rebel under Ben's command would be hot after them, never let up. They traveled night and day, pushing the vehicles and themselves. If a vehicle broke down, it was abandoned along the road. They could not risk the time needed to make repairs.

"Break it off," Ben finally gave the orders.

"We can't keep up this pace. We're losing ground anyway according to outpost reports."

Ben ordered his people to rest and work on the vehicles.

And he was debating whether or not to or-

der Dan to halt. Ben knew the Englishmen would pursue Villar, but would not endanger his men tackling a much greater force should he not catch Villar before he reached the wilderness area and linked up with Malone.

"What's the last report on Dan?" Ben asked Cor-rie.

"Wyoming, sir. He had to stop for major repairs on some of the vehicles."

Ben made up his mind. "Get him for me, please."

Colonel Gray on the horn, Ben told him, "That's it, Dan. Just hold what you've got.

I'm ordering all units to link up with you. So for now, you stay put and get some rest. We know where Villar is heading. We'll deal with them all."

"That's affirmative, General. I'd about made up my mind to stop when the vehicles broke down.

I just never could catch up with the bastard."

"You gave it your best shot, Dan. Get some rest. We'll be there in a couple or

three days. I'm not going to push it."

Ben and his columns were in Western Kansas, south and almost even with the Rebels who had taken the more northern route. He checked his maps and turned to Corrie. "Tell the others to rendezvous just east of the Continental Divide, on Highway

Two-eighty-seven. On the Sweetwater. Tell them there is no hurry. Malone and Villar aren't going anywhere." He smiled at Thermopolis.

"One thing about it, Therm: it's going to put us a hell of a lot closer to Alaska."

The hippie fixed him with a jaundiced look. "I do hope, General, that this upcoming battle will be a short one. I have no desire to be caught in Alaska in the dead of winter."

"Well, there is a bright spot should that happen."

"I'm afraid to ask what."

"All those books you're toting around from the libraries back in Jeff City."

Thermopolis walked away, muttering about transporting approximately twenty-seven tons of books all over the goddamn United States.

Ben called his son to his side. "You and your Rat Team take off, boy. See what you can find out about Malone and his bunch. How many people answered his call and so forth. Stay out of the Wilderness area.

And that's an order."

Buddy tossed his father a very sloppy salute. "On my way, pops."

"Pops!" Ben muttered, watching his son jog away.

Ben walked back to the communications truck and joined Cecil, who was talking with the man he'd left in charge back at Base Camp One. "Trouble, Cec?"

"Oh

be

no. Just checking in on Patrice and the kids."

"And? . . ."

"She told me to be sure to take my blood pressure medicine," Cecil said sheepishly.

Laughing, Ben walked away, wandering through the camp, stopping to chat with small groups of troops as he strolled among the resting and relaxing men and women, Jersey always a few steps behind him.

"We goin' to Alaska or Ireland, General?" the question was tossed at him.

"I don't know, Pete," Ben replied. "As much blarney as you have, you'd be right at home in Ireland."

"You reckon there's any redheads left over there, General?" another asked.

"You got a redhead, Marty," Ben reminded him.

"Back at Base Camp One."

"Yeah," a woman called out. "And the truth be known, he can't even take care of her!"

Red-faced, Marty shook his head and grinned.

Ben walked on, liking what he saw as he walked. His people had been resting for two days, and they were ready to go. They were ready to get this fight over withand see some new country.

He turned to Corrie. "Use your

walkie-talkie, Jersey. Bump Corrie.

Tell her to alert all commanders. We're pulling out at dawn."

Hundreds of miles away, in a farmhouse, a hooded figure asked, "Will she live?"

"Despite what she had been through, her signs are good. She'll live if she has the will to do so. But I don't know that she wants to live."

"Why do you say such a thing?" the man cried.

"Because of the damage done to her. Infection set in.

We had to amputate most of what was left of her legs. Her face is horribly scarred from the fire as is most of her body. She will

never again have hair."

"She must live! She still has hundreds of followers."

The medical man shrugged.

"Has she said anything since her surgery?"

"Yes. One sentence. Over and over."

"And that is? . . ."

"I hate Ben Raines."

The man smiled. "She'll live, Doctor.

She'll live."

Satan and his outlaw pack caught up with Ashley and his men. It was not a joyous encounter for either of them, but with Ben Raines on their butts, they both knew the stronger they were, the better.

Ashley had shaken his head at the news of the crushing of the Ninth Order. "I tried to warn her, Satan. I did try."

"I know. For, once, you was right and the rest of us was wrong. Miracles still happen, I reckon."

Ashley ignored that. "So what do you propose to do, Satan?"

"Beats the shit outta me, man. It's done got to the point where there ain't no safe place no more.

Ben Raines has got people all over the damn country. I figure we might as well go

out in a blaze of glory, maybe."

"Whatever in the world are you babbling about?"

"I ain't babblin' about nothin'. I'm tellin' you that I ain't gonna spend the rest of my life runnin' from that goddamn Ben Raines. I'm gonna find me a spot to defend and make my stand.

Just like I seen John Wayne do one time in the movies, fighting a bunch of Mexicans or Indians or Puerto Ricans or somethin' like that."

Ashley sighed. "Satan, why do something like that? We don't have to die just because Ben Raines is on the prowl. That makes no sense. Look, I've been doing some thinking on this matter, and I have discovered that there is one place that Ben Raines apparently has no interest in. Why don't we check out what's happening with Malone, and then head there?"

"Where's there?"

"Alaska."

"Welcome!" Malone shouted, spreading his arms wide and smiling at the tired terrorists.

His men had stopped the convoy miles from the entrance to what had become known as the wilderness area: over twenty thousand square miles of country located in the northwestern section of Montana and the northeastern section of Idaho.

"You would be General Villar? I have been monitoring the events of this summer. Indeed I have."

"I am Lan Villar. You are Malone?"

"Indeed I am."

The men stood inspecting each other, both liking what they saw. They were about the same age and both of them in good physical condition. Both of them wore their hair short and it was peppered with gray. Malone was stocky, well-built. He considered himself to be a very religious man, and could point to passages in the Bible that he construed to mean that everybody who wasn't white was inferior. More specifically, white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant.

Malone stepped closer to Villar and whispered, "That dark fellow over there, he's a sand-nigger, ain't he?"

"I beg your pardon? Oh. Khamsin. He's a Libyan."

"That's what I said. An A-rab. Sand-nigger.

Is he worth a damn for anything? Can he fight?"

"He can fight."

"Did they bring their own women with them?"

"Some did."

"I don't want none of them fooling around with white women. The Bible forbids mixing of the races. Says so right out. You tell him that."

"I shall certainly advise him."

"You don't have any Jews or Mexicans with you, do you?"

"No," Villar said with a smile. Already he could understand why Ben Raines hated this man so.

"That's good. We'll get along then. I'm a good Christian man, General Villar. I don't drink hard liquor or smoke and won't allow it in my presence. I've been married to the same women for years and have never lusted after another woman.

That's a sin. We go to church here every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. But that's not something you will have to do if you so choose."

The only thing that Villar had done with churches over the past quarter-century was blow them up; preferably with people inside them. But just the thought of attending some religious ceremony filled him with amusement. "Oh, but I enjoy a good sermon, Malone. I'm looking forward to attending your services. Aren't you, Kenny?" he turned and winked at the young terrorist.

"Oh, yeah," Kenny said, with about as much enthusiasm in his voice as a long-distance runner with an ingrown toenail. "My daddy always told me to go to church whenever I could."

"Excellent! Wonderful!" Malone cried.

"Enter my territory, gentlemen." He waved toward the vast wilderness area. "The new land of milk and honey and freedom from the inferiors."

Back in their vehicles, Kenny said, "This guy is as loony as a road lizard, Lan. I hope to hell you don't plan on staying here any length of time."

"Let's reserve judgment until we see how many men he has in his army, and what kind of soldiers they are. I'd join hands with the devil if that would insure getting rid of Ben Raines."

"The devil might be an improvement over this screwball," Kenny muttered.

Ben pulled his contingent out the next morning, with Buddy and his Rat Team at the point. The long column turned northwestward, heading for the rendezvous point in Wyoming. Ben stopped at several outposts along the way, and was pleased at the progress the settlers had made. The so-called secure zones were clean and neat, and stores were slowly being reopened, many of them using barter as a means of exchange, but with newly printed money now also being accepted. The nation was once more back on the gold standard, with Ben's accountants controlling the gold and the flow of paper money.

At an airstrip not far from the rendezvous point, heavily guarded planes were sitting. Ben had a surprise for his people.

Payday.

"You're kidding?" Jerre said, looking at Ben.

"Nope. Payday."

"Where are we supposed to spend it?" Beth asked.

"There are shops and stores in the outposts that accept paper money. Also a lot of individuals who do work in their homes are accepting it. Crafts people and the like. I'm going to reopen several vacation spots around the nation; secure-zones just like the outposts, and start running airline flights to and from outposts to the vacation zones. For a fee, of course. It's a small start, but it most definitely is a start."

"Well, I'll be damned!" Cooper said.

"Probably," Jersey told him.

Many of the older Rebels just sat and stared at the money in their hands after the long lines had been paid.

Things were beginning to come together once more. For the first time in a long time, the men and women of the Rebels began to really sense that all the fighting they'd been doing, for over a decade, was paying off.

Ike was rubbing two brand new bills together and grinning. "I love the sound of money," he said.

He frowned and squinted one eye at Ben. "But you know what this means, Ben."

Ben waited and smiled.

"This means I got to send most of this home to the wife."

"That's right," Ben said cheerfully. "We've had the good life for a long time, old friend. No money worries because there was no money. But as the nation grows and builds, pure barter can't stand as the sole means of exchange of goods for service. All the freebies we're used to just picking up as we go along are running out. It's the old law of supply and demand."

Chase looked at the pay in his hand. "Damned if I don't feel like crying," the crusty old doctor said. "I saw this nation destroyed, now I'm seeing it put back together comall in one lifetime. I never thought I'd live to see it, Ben."

"It's a start, Lamar. Just a start. We'll get this nation secure. But we can't stop there. We've got to secure the world or our enemies will eventually cross the waters and destroy us."

General Georgi Striganov nodded his head in agreement. "I would like to see the motherland once more before I die. I want to see if those left are friends or enemies."

"What if we do get there, General?" Dan asked. "Would you want to stay?"

The Russian shook his head. "No. No. My future is here, just above the line in what was once Canada. I have my wife, my family, and my farm. I will come back here."

"Enjoy the feel of your first paycheck, people. It isn't much when compared to what we were making before the great war, but then, there isn't that much to buy."

"Not much?" Georgi said with a smile, holding out the bills in his hand. "Oh, but it is, Ben. You don't know what Russian generals were paid!"

Thermopolis's crew immediately got together and began scrounging up canvas, old leather jackets and boots and snaps and zippers. They began making billfolds and purses and selling them.

Up to this point, the only thing Rebels had to carry were the dogtags around their necks. Now they had money to carry around with them and soon they would have ID'S with their pictures on them, encased in plastic.

Billfolds were needed, and Thermopolis's bunch saw the need and provided the goods . . . for money.

A few Rebels found decks of cards and poker games sprang up around the camp. This army was no different from any other army that ever marched the earth ...

in many respects. Ben sent the word down the line that anyone caught cheating at cards or dice was in for some bad trouble. But he didn't try to impose laws forbidding gambling among his troops. Cavemen probably tossed stones into a small circle, the hunters gambling among themselves for the best cuts of meat.

Ben and his commanders spent the time going over maps of the wilderness area.

"OK, people, here it is: Buddy's Rat Teams report that Malone and his bunch are spread out from the northern tip of the old Beaverhead National Forest all the way up to British Columbia. That's more area than we first thought. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty thousand square miles, taking in parts of two states. It isn't going to be a cakewalk by no stretch of the imagination. Ashley and the outlaw bikers have linked up with Malone, as have Villar, Khamsin, and Kenny Parr. We'll be able to use tanks in some areas . . . but not many. This is going to be a rough one. It's going to be march in and slug it out eyeball to eyeball. Dan, you get your riggers busy drying out the "chutes. There might be a drop during this campaign, and if so, you and your people will be dropping into some rugged country. Cecil, get the birds coming up this way with supplies. Depots at Conrad, Fort Benton, Lewistown, and get with Georgi on a location in B.c."

Georgi leaned forward, over the briefing table. He studied the map for a moment. "Right there," he said, pointing. "Creston. There is a strip large enough for the planes to use. And that's right over the panhandle of Idaho."

"Good enough," Ben said, as Beth took down all the planned depots. "Now then, once we get in this area and our quarry sees we're in this to the finish, there is no telling where they're going to go. I wish we had the people to seal this area off, but that's a pipe dream. It would take several divisions to do that comand they would be stretching it."

"What we could do," Cecil said, after studying the maps, "is take Five and Six battalions and spread them at the bridges along this stretch of Highway

Two-hundred down to Thompson Falls.

Then do the same along the Interstate down to the junction with Ninety-three, and then all the way down to the Idaho line south. But that would be spreading them thin."

"Not if we used our tanks to beef them up,"

West pointed out. "We could get them moving right now, and be in position by the time we are fully resup-plied and ready to go in."

"We sure won't be able to use main battle tanks once we get off what few highways are in there," Ike added. "Dusters will be about all we'll be able to use."

"Get the spotter planes up," Ben ordered.

He traced the several meandering rivers from British Columbia down to the Idaho line at Lost Trail Pass. "See how many important

bridges are still standing along this route." He met the eyes of Colonel Gray. "Any whose connecting roads from the east or west have deteriorated to the point of being unusable . . . blow them."

"Right, sir."

"Cec, bump Base Camp One and our other main depots and get every tank we have drivers and crews for started up here on flatbeds. I want them to roll twenty-four hours a day. Tell

the drivers I want them up here day before yesterday.

And tell them to come up from the south and work north.

Five and Six battalions will not move into place until we have supporting tanks in; we don't want to give away what we're doing."

Ben paused to take a sip of cold coffee.

"Yekk!" he said with a grimace, and sat the cup down.

"Did the general let his coffee get cold?"

Jerre asked sweetly.

Ben almost popped right back at her, but changed his mind as he realized that's what she wanted him to do. "Yes the general did, Lieutenant," he said just as sweetly. "Why don't you be a sweet girl and make a fresh pot . . . and then pour us all some fresh coffee?"

Sitting in a chair, Jersey looked heavenward and her beret fell down, covering her eyes. She made no attempt to pull it back up. She really wasn't sure she wanted to see the rest of this exchange -- hearing it might be volatile enough.

Corrie and Beth moved out of the deadly, eye-locked shooting gallery between Jerre and Ben.

Cooper quietly left the room. The others froze in their boots.

"Oh, it would be a pleasure, General," Jerre said, enough ice in her voice to air condition all of Mississippi in August. She moved to the door, turned, and mouthed the silent words Fuck you! She shut the door behind her.

After the dust in the room had settled from the impact of door into frame, Ben muttered, "One for me.

I think," he added.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Ike said.

"You do enjoy living dangerously, don't you, friend?"

Georgi said with a smile.

"I gotta go to the John," Jersey said, and left the room.

Beth moved and Ben said, "You stay. I need you in here. You're the only one in here that makes legible notes."

"Lucky me," Beth muttered.

Ben gave her a dirty look that had about as much impression on her as it would on a porcupine.

"Oh, hell," Ben said. "Everybody take a break. Damn, can't anybody take a joke anymore?"

Ben sat down at his desk and told Beth to take off with the others. Be back in fifteen minutes.

He was going over maps when Jerre came back in and set the coffeepot down on the grill of the portable burner, only bending it a little.

Rolling a cigarette, Ben said, "You used to be able to take a joke better than that, Jerre. I recall that we used to insult each other a hell of a lot rougher than that. Alone and in a crowd."

She stared at him for a very long minute until finally some good humor came back into her eyes. "Yeah.

But you caught me off guard that time, Ben. You want an apology?"

He shook his head. "No. You want a transfer out of here."

She shook her head. "No. That wouldn't accomplish anything. We're becoming friends again, Ben. It's just going to take some time, that's all."

Ben stood up and poured two mugs of coffee, handing one to her. "Have you heard any word on how the twins are doing?"

"Yes. They're fine. I don't think they miss me at all."

"That's bullshit, Jerre, and you know it."

"I'm not the world's greatest mother, Ben. I have too much wanderer in me."

"Well, stay with us, kid. We're damn sure going to do a lot more wandering."

She nodded her head and sipped her coffee. "Yeah, Ben. I plan on doing that."

One by one, the others wandered back into the big room.

They were wary at first, until they saw Ben and Jerre joking with each other.

They watched as Ben spread clear plastic over the table map and began making small black X's on the plastic. "What Malone and his people did when they settled in here was very smart. After our fly-by's charted each smoke they saw, I compared the smoke with an old tourist guidebook and a map.

Back before the war, there were over fifty lodges and guest ranches in this area, ranging in size to accommodate anywhere from twenty to five hundred guests. Malone just put his people into those quarters. And it was a good move on his part. For many of these lodges and their outbuildings are way to hell and gone from paved roads and civilization ... as we once knew it.

"Now then, with the addition of Villar and those with him, the use of PU!'S is out of the questions. They'd just knock them out of the sky with missiles. But," Ben held up a finger and smiled. "We can get our

one-o-five's in damn close to these places, and make it awfully uncomfortable for Malone and Villar. So everybody has their jobs

to do. Let's get to it." He smiled. "I would like to get to Alaska before winter."

Villar was the first to put it together.

A week had passed since Ben laid out the battle plans, and Villar had personally driven over as many roads in the so-called wilderness area-actually much of it was referred to as glacier country -- as could be driven over in the time he'd spent in the area.

It was beautiful country. Even a man such as Villar, with all the compassion of a cobra could see that. Whether or not he appreciated the beauty was something he never revealed. What he did reveal were his thoughts on defending the area.

"It's a death trap," he told Malone.

"Whatever in the world do you mean?" Malone looked at him. "There is no way Ben Raines is ever going to flush us out of here."

"Ben Raines can do just about anything he sets his mind to," Villar bluntly told the man. "I've had rec patrols out since one hour after I got here, Malone. It didn't take me long to put together what Raines is doing."

"And what might that be?"

Villar bit back his anger. Malone was

more and more reminding him of video tapes he'd seen -- years back comof certain TV preachers and those who wanted to set the moral standards of others: smug, arrogant, and self-centered. "He's putting us in a box, Malone."

"Nonsense! Villar, do you have any understanding of the thousands of square miles we control?"

"Let me tell you something, Malone. All along our west side there are rivers. To cross rivers, one must use bridges. The explosions you asked me about? Ben Raines's troops blowing certain bridges. At all the other bridges? Rebels backed up by battle tanks and heavy artillery.

He's effectively sealed off that route. To the north, the same problem: rivers and bridges. To the south lies the Continental Divide, with mountains ranging from six thousand to eleven thousand feet.

Raines has blocked every access route out. To the north, going into Canada, he's placed the Russian, Striganov, and his army. Ben Raines and Ike McGowan and their troops are to the east.

Do you understand, Malone, that Raines has artillery that can drop rounds in on top of our heads from twenty-five miles away? All he's going to do, to soften us up, is take control of several roads comwh he has the people to do comand then tear the guts out of us with long-range artillery."

Malone was sitting quietly. The smugness was gone from his face.

Meg Callahan was seated beside him. Meg had been a part of the Rebels for a time, until Ben had flushed her out of his ranks, after learning that she was a spy. She knew from firsthand experience what the Rebels were capable of doing; and she knew that Villar was telling the truth.

Ashley nodded his head in agreement with Villar and Malone took note of the nod.

"Is there no place on the face of this earth that is safe from that heathen?" Malone practically screamed the words.

"I'm beginning to think not," the terrorist replied.

"Besides, what good would that knowledge do us now?"

"What do you mean?" Malone demanded.

"He means," Meg told him, "that we're

trapped in here. Ben Raines has sealed us in.

Right, Villar?"

"To a degree, yes. We could get out; but it would have to be on foot. We'd have to march out, leaving anything we couldn't carry."

"Ben Raines has no right to do this!"

Malone screamed, spittle spraying from his mouth.

"He has no right to displace us from our homes."

"Fine," Villar said. "Then do you want to tell General Raines that you will live under the Rebel rules?"

"Certainly not! Don't be ridiculous! I will not allow genetically inferior people into this area. That's why we came out here in the first place, to get away from niggers and Jews and wops and spies and polocks and the like. There used to be a couple of Indian reservations in this area. Those we didn't kill we ran out. Oh, there are some still in this territory. We use them for houseboys and maids and cooks.

Menial jobs." He waved that off. "You know all that, Villar. I'm not leaving, Villar. I will order my people to gear up for a sustained battle, and we'll fight to the bitter end."

Villar's smile was void of humor. "With your philosophy, Malone, you don't have a great deal of choice in the matter." But I do, he silently added.

Trucks had rolled into the area from Base Camp One, carrying supplies and instruments of war. They rolled in twenty-four hours a day. Planes were landing around the clock, off-loading their cargoes of ammunition, food, medical

supplies, generators, and boots, bras, and fresh BDU'S.

Inside the wilderness area, Malone had set up his CP at a once beautiful resort near the Pinkham

Mountains, some thirty-five miles from the Canadian border.

Satan and his odious crew had personally inspected many of the roads leading out of the area, roaring around on their motorcycles, disturbing the animals and fouling the pristine air.

When they tried to cross over into the Bitterroot Range, they came under heavy fire from the Rebels stationed along Highway 200, 135, and Interstate 90.

"Shit," Hogjaw said. "We in a hell of bind in here, man."

"Yeah," Moosemouth agreed. "I ain't likin"

this worth a damn."

"I think I'll kill that goddamn Ashley for bringin' us in here," Satan said. "It's all his damn fault."

"No, it ain't," a biker called Axehandle said.

"It's our fault. If I git out of this

mess, I'm hangin' it up, boys. I'm fixin'

to find me a good woman, git me a little farm and settle down."

"What damn woman that's any good would have you?"

Satan fixed him with a baleful look.

Axehandle shrugged. "Plenty of "em, once I git shut of the likes of you?" j

Satan wanted to slap him 6ff his Hog. But Axehandle was just about as big and just about as mean as Satan, so the leader of the outlaw bikers held his temper in check. Instead, he said, "I don't want you in my bunch no more, Axe. Carry your funky ass."

"With pleasure," Axehandle said. "But you ride out first. I don't wanna git shot in the back."

Satan grimaced, kicked his Hog into life, and roared off, the others with him.

Axe rode south, down the Ninemile Divide to within shouting distance of the Interstate. "That's it!" he yelled across the expanse of concrete. "I'm quittin." I done broke with Satan and them others. Y'all hear me?"

"We hear you," Leadfoot hollered from the other side. "Is that you, Axe?"

"In person. That you, Leadfoot?"

"In the flesh. You wanna join us?"

Axehandle thought about that for a moment, then sighed.

Anyone with any sense ought to know there wasn't no way Ben Raines was gonna be stopped. Him and his Rebels was like a steamroller.

"Did you have any trouble adjustin' to the Rebel way of life, Leadfoot?"

"Not a bit, Axe. We enjoy it. It's pretty good over here."

"Beerbelly joined us," Wanda hollered. "The Rebels fixed up his teeth and he looks almost human."

"You don't say? All right, Leadfoot, I'll give her a whirl."

"There ain't no givin' nothin' a whirl, Axe.

You either in, or you on your own, boy. Ben Raines don't cut nobody no slack."

Axehandle turned in the saddle at the sounds of half a dozen motorcycles coming up behind him. It was Danny and Corrigan and a few others. "You boys pullin' out?" he asked.

"You got that right, Axe," Corrigan said. "I'm tarred of bein' a loser. I wanna get on the right side for a change."

"Me, too," Axe told him. "That's

Leadfoot and Wanda over yonder," he said, pointing across the Interstate.

"You don't say? How they likin' the Rebel way?"

"Said it's fine. The Rebels fixed up

Beerbelly's teeth. Wanda said he looks sorta normal now."

"That'd be a sight to see. Beerbelly never did resemble nothin." his

"Leadfoot?" Axe hollered. "Right here, boy.

With you in gunsights." Axe swallowed hard.

"Lower your guns, Beer. We's comin" acrost to join up!"

Ben Raines impressed the outlaw bikers.

There was nothing physically overpowering about the man.

While he looked to be in middle-age he also looked in picture-perfect health. Which he was, except for a knee that bothered him from time to time and reading was a lot easier when he remembered to use his glasses.

There was just something about the man . . . the way he carried himself, maybe. Maybe it was some invisible aura lingering about him. For sure it was those cold gunfighter eyes.

"Why do you want to join us?" Ben finally spoke, his words soft. He was beginning to spook the bikers just sitting there staring at them.

was "Cause we're all damned tired of

gettin" kicked around," Corrigan said.

"Outlawin' ain't much fun anymore. And us here"

comhe jerked his thumb at the other bikers com8is probably all that's comin' out."

"Why did you come out?" Ben never took his eyes from the man.

"I just told you . . . sir."

"No, you didn't. You told me you were tired of getting kicked around. If that was the only reason, you could have just kept on going. Now tell me why you came out."

Axehandle said, "To tell you the truth, General.

Us here never felt like we really belonged with them others. Lamply there" comhe jerked his thumb com8was always pickin' up stray cats and dogs and carin' for them and the like. Me and Corrigan and the rest of us here never would take no part in no gang-shag-

gin' of girls or women. I wasn't brought up like that. And, well, I guess we all got to thinkin'

that the way we was livin' wasn't a very good one. I guess that about covers the waterfront, General."

Ben nodded his head. "You'll all undergo a battery of tests comsome of them aren't very pleasant; I warn of that in advance. We won't throw them at you all at once, however. It might even come after this battle is over . . ." Ben paused. "Why are you smiling, Lamply?"

"That's another reason we come acrost, General.

You don't even think of losin'. They got more troops than you have over yonder, but with you, it's just like, We'll win this one and then go on to the next one.

They might be armies acrost the seas that can whip you.

I don't know about that. But there ain't nothing left in the States that can do it; lessen all them Night Crawlers was to come together. But you done got them on the run."

"Ashley and Satan, are they looking for a hole to run out of and get gone from this fight?"

"Oh, yes, sir. They sure are. So is that Villar and Kenny Parr and Khamsin. They got "em a place they want to get to, but they never did tell us where it was."

Ben stood up and shook hands with the bikers.

"Welcome to the Rebels, men."

Grinning, Axehandle said, "Well do you proud, General. We'll not let you down."

"I believe that. All right, Leadfoot.

They're all yours, get them outfitted."

Lamar Chase had sat quietly throughout the brief interview, watching the bikers scratch. With a sigh, he picked up the phone that had recently been connected to the hospital and to other CP'S throughout the area and requested some medics to take some strong soap and flea powder over to the bikers"

quarters.

He went out the door bitching. "Goddamnest army in the history of modern warfare!"

Chapter 1

When the end is lawful, the means are also lawful.

• Hermann Busenbaum

Ben had retired early and the camp sensed that at dawn the next day, all hell was going to break loose. For at the beginning of a new campaign, Ben always went to sleep early and got up long before anybody else, to sit with coffee at hand, brooding over whether he had left anything out of his plans.

He awoke with a good feeling about the campaign. Not that it was going to be easy comx wasn't going to be comb that he and the others had done their best in the planning of it.

He showered quickly in cold water, shaved without cutting himself, and dressed in clean

BDU'S, slipping into body armor and then pulling on his battle harness. He checked his .45 and holstered it, picking up his M-14 and slinging it.

His personal team was ready to go when he stepped out of his quarters.

Jerre handed him a mug of coffee and stepped out of his way. She knew his habits: until he had mulled things over in his mind and was satisfied with them, he wanted no conversation.