Fire in the Ashes

ONE

“You’re lucky, Ben,” Doctor Lamar Chase said. “You’re the luckiest man I’ve ever seen.”

But some of Ben Raines’s Rebels were beginning to think there was something more than luck surrounding their commanding officer.

“You’ve got a broken collarbone, three cracked ribs, and a small bit of bone gone from your left shoulder. This would have killed a lesser man. Should have killed you.”

Jerre knelt by Ben’s bed. “Old man,” she grinned at him. “I wish you’d quit scaring me like this.”

Ben touched her face, ran his fingers through her blond hair. His face was pale from shock and the pain of his wounds. “I keep telling you, babe,” he whispered, “I’ll go when I’m damn well ready to go.”

She kissed his cheek.

“Everybody out!” Chase ordered. “Let the man get some rest. He’s not immortal, you know.”

The doctor did not notice the strange looks he received at that statement.

Ben’s personal contingent of Rebels was camped near Hell Creek, not far from the southern shores of the Fort Peck Recreation Area. Many of these Rebels had been with Ben for years: Judith Sparkman, James Riverson, Ike McGowen, Ben’s adopted daughter, Tina, Cecil Jefferys, Doctor Chase, in his early seventies and still spry as a mountain goat—and just as cantankerous.

The tent cleared and Ben closed his eyes, fighting back waves of nausea that alternated with the peaks and valleys of pain coursing through him. The shot Doctor Chase had administered began to take hold, dropping Ben into drug-induced sleep.

But his sleep was troubled, and he called out for friends long dead. Men he had known in Southeast Asia; men he had fought with during his years as a mercenary in Africa—that period of his life when the adrenaline-surging high of combat would not be appeased by civilian life. But he’d finally gotten it out of his system and returned to a normal life, as a writer.

He called out for friends who had stayed with him after the bombings of 1988, men and women who had toiled, giving their sweat and blood, and ultimately, their lives for a dream called Tri-States; a country within a country. It was a dream carved out of three states, an area free of crime and unemployment, where men and women could leave their homes unlocked and the keys in their cars and trucks, knowing they would not be robbed or their vehicles stolen.

Ben Raines and his Rebels had proved their concept of government could work; that people do not have to be bogged down by government bureaucracy and red tape. That schools could function without the Supreme Court and federal judges interfering with the process of education.

Tri-States worked. It had worked. And it would work again.

Ben groaned on his cot.

“You bring back Ben Raines’s body,” Al Cody told a group of agents. “I don’t care if it takes you six months to find the rotting bastard—you bring it back.”

“Wild country out there, Mr. Cody,” the FBI chief was reminded.

“I am well aware of that.”

“And still full of Rebels,” another agent said.

“Take as many men as you need. Do it. Find the son of a bitch and bring it back. I want it on public display. The people have to learn that this is a law-and-order society. Anarchy will not be permitted.”

The agents left the office and drew weapons. They called their wives and girlfriends and told them they were going on assignment.

No, they did not know when they would be back.

They boarded a plane at Byrd Field and headed westward. The agents were in high spirits. Hunting traitors was the name of the game. They were loyal to the red, white, and blue, Ben Raines and his Rebels were all traitors and anarchists, and that was that.

It was all cut and dried. No gray area between the white and the black.

By tomorrow at this time, all the agents would be dead.

“We hit them here,” Colonel Hector Ramos told his Rebels. He thumped a wall map and smiled grimly, a big predatory cat on the trail of a blood scent. Ramos had lost his entire family to government troops back in ‘98. His wife and daughter had been raped and tortured and then cut open like pigs, left to die in the sands like hunted animals.

Ramos looked at his people. “Our informants in Richmond said the agents left two hours ago. A planeload of them. Fifty agents, all heavily armed. They are to find General Raines’s body and return with it to Richmond; put the body on public display…”

A hand shot up.

Ramos said, “Captain Garrett?”

“Let’s not kill the pilots, sir,” the young captain suggested.

“Oh?”

“No, sir. Let’s send the agents back in the plane. All sitting up very nicely in the seats. All dead.”

“I think General Raines would approve of that, Captain,” Ramos said. “Thank you. A very nice touch, indeed. I would like to see Director Cody’s face when his men return.”

Just as their cousins and uncles and fathers and mothers had done years before, many people of the United States, instead of turning in their handguns and heavy-caliber hunting rifles, had wrapped them carefully and buried them. Then they had formed underground networks of small cells of dedicated men and women, all with one goal in mind: To keep Ben Raines’s dream alive. To restore America, not to what she was before the bombings, but something better; something very much like Tri-States. And just as their relatives had done before them, if they had to die to preserve that dream of a government truly “Of and for the people”… so be it. They were prepared to do so.

“Will you get your ass back into bed!” Chase shouted at Ben. “Good jumping Jesus Christ.”

Ben bit back the pain and said, “Hector Ramos on the horn. It’s big, the operator said. I’ll just talk for a minute then back to bed. That’s a promise.”

“Hard-headed son of a bitch!” Chase yelled at him.

“You shouldn’t talk to the general like that,” a young Rebel said, speaking before he thought.

“I’ll talk to him any goddamn way I please to talk to him!” Chase roared.

He was still roaring at the young man when Ben slipped on the headset in the communications tent. “Go, Hector.”

“How’ya doing, General?”

“I’m alive, Hec—but don’t ask me how.”

Ramos brought him up to date on the flight of the agents. Ben smiled a toothy tiger’s smile as Ramos told him the plans. “I like the captain’s plan, Hec. Can you carry it out?”

“No sweat, General. They’ll land at the new Air Force base just outside Flagstaff late this afternoon. My people will be in position when they come in. We’ll hit them as they deplane, then ship the bodies back the same day.”

“What about the personnel at the base?”

“Just a skeleton crew. My people took care of them about two hours ago.”

Ben sighed, his pain momentarily forgotten. “All right, Hec. But this commits us past the point of no return; your people aware of that?”

“Yes, sir. To a person.”

“Good luck, Hec.”

Ben slowly removed the headset and handed it to the operator. The young man looked at him, questions in his eyes. “From now on it’s open warfare, isn’t it, General?”

“Yes, it is, son. It sure is.”

Chase stuck his head in the tent. “Now will you get your ass back to bed?” he shouted.

“I know what you’re thinking, Ben,” Jerre said, when Ben was once more in bed.

He looked at her. “Oh?”

“You’re wondering if you’re doing the right thing. You’re thinking some of those agents were just kids when the bombings occurred; they might not even remember what it was like before. And some of them might not really go along with Al Cody and President Addison, but they’re just doing their jobs.”

“You do have a way of getting inside my head,” he said dreamily, half asleep.

“I should,” she smiled. “After all, you screwed me when I was only nineteen, you dirty old man.”

“So am I doing the right thing, Jerre?”

“You know you are, Benj,” her words held a hollow, echoing sound as he drifted off into sleep.

He was remembering how they met, ten years back…

He had seen her walking slowly down the road—trudging was more like it—just north of Charlottesville, Virginia. It was just a few weeks after the world had exploded in germ and nuclear warfare. Frightened, she had jumped across a ditch and hurt her ankle. Ben found himself looking down the barrel of a small automatic pistol.

He had finally convinced her he meant her no harm, and she allowed him to look at her ankle, finally convincing her she should soak the ankle in a nearby creek.

She had been in college in Maryland when the bombs hit. She’d been sick for a week. The whole experience had been “Gross, man. The absolute pits.”

They had talked the afternoon away, and she came to trust him. That night, she came to his bed, young and coltish and smelling of soap, fresh from her bath.

They had traveled the country, growing fonder of each other. But she had told him she would leave when she felt the time was right, ‘cause right now, he thought she was cute; but that cute would get old pretty damn quick, she thought.

He had taught her as much as he could in their time together—teaching her, he hoped, to survive.

“But,” he had told her, “it might help improve your shooting if you would open your eyes.”

He had left her just south of Chapel Hill.

He still had the letter she had written him.

The agents walked blindly into a murderous ambush at the Air Force base. As they deplaned, they thought nothing of the Air Police sitting around the airport in Jeeps. The M-16s in their hands and the M-60 and .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the Jeeps were nothing out of the ordinary. The agents paid little attention to them.

They also paid little attention to the AF captain and sergeant who boarded the plane when the last agent got off.

The pilot felt the cold steel of a .45 pistol pressing into his neck. He did not turn around. He just listened to the low voice explain how it was his option whether to live or die.

“Just keep your cool, Captain,” the Rebel told him. “You’re not going to be on the ground very long.”

The pilot fought to keep his nerves steady as heavy gunfire ripped the late afternoon. The screaming of the agents churned his guts and tied them into soft knots. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked at his copilot. He, too, had a pistol shoved into his neck.

“Your wife’s name is Loraine,” the Rebel told him. “Your copilot’s wife is Betty. Right now, they’re safe; fuck up, and you’ll never see them again.”

That was a high bluff. The Rebels had no intention of harming any innocent person; but the pilots didn’t need to know that.

Outside the plane, the gunfire was still intense.

“Just tell us what you want us to do, mister,” the pilot replied. “We’re civilian fliers, not military.” He watched an agent running across the tarmac. A machine gun barked; a row of bloody dots appeared on the man’s back. He fell face-first on the tarmac and lay still.

“While we’re loading the bodies on the plane,” the Rebel said, “you’re going to refuel and take a piss if you need to. Then you’re going to fly back to Richmond and you are going to maintain radio silence all the way except for landing instructions. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“While you’re getting your instructions to land, you are going to tell the tower to get hold of Director Cody. Have him meet you at the airport. Tell him this: General Raines is alive and well. He sends his best wishes in the form of this little present. Tell him Tri-States will rise again. Tell him from this point on, it is open, no-holds-barred warfare. I hope, gentlemen, we will not see one another again. Stay in your seats until I give the word.”

“Yes, sir.”

After what seemed an eternity, the muzzle of the .45 was removed from the pilots’ necks. Both men slowly turned their heads and fought to keep from puking as the grisly cargo was loaded onto the plane, placed in seats, and buckled in.

“Refuel now,” they were told.

Tanks topped, the Rebel said, “Have a nice, safe journey back home, boys.”

Then he was gone.

Taxiing away, the copilot said, “Al Cody is gonna have a fit about this.”

“Fuck Al Cody,” the pilot said tersely. “Man, if I knew how to go about it, I’d join the Rebels now.”

“Well, hell! Why didn’t you ask back there?”

“Did you feel like making chit-chat with that .45 in your neck?”

“Shit, no!”

“Then just fly the plane; don’t ask stupid questions.”

The Air Force personnel were released unharmed; all but four of them who had elected to fight. They lay stretched out in an empty hangar, their bodies covered with blankets.

“If you men are smart,” the leader of the Rebel unit told them, “you’ll walk off this base the instant we leave and don’t look back. ‘Cause the word is goin’ out: you are either one hundred percent for us, or one hundred percent against us. Just like the government mentality, boys, no gray in the middle. If that’s the way they choose to fight, it’s okay with us.”

“How do we join you?” one asked.

“Just walk out with us.”

“That suits me, man.”

Nine of the airmen walked out with the Rebels.

Ben Raines’s movement was once more rolling, picking up steam with each tick of the clock.

Five hours later, in Richmond, Al Cody stood in silent trembling rage as he viewed what was left of his men. He walked out of the plane and stood in the darkness on the tarmac. His fists were clenched and his voice choked with anger as he spoke.

“I’m going to find you, Ben Raines. I swear it. I’m going to find you and publicly hang you. And I’m going to enjoy it immensely.”

Cody walked away from the death-plane. He was a short, stocky man with iron gray hair and the belief that his government could do no wrong. Al believed if his government made a rule, it didn’t matter if ninety-nine percent of the people were opposed to it—it was the law, and by God the public would obey it, and if they didn’t they could damn well pay the price by being branded a criminal.

Cody stopped on the tarmac and ran blunt fingers through his hair. He turned his cold expressionless blue eyes on a senior agent who waited by his car.

“Get Ben Raines. Break the back of the Rebels. I don’t care how you do it or how many men it takes—just do it.”

“Some of the men are swearing dire revenge about this,” the agent jerked a thumb toward the plane. “They’re talking about anything goes, sir. They’re saying find the Rebel sympathizers and break them, any way we can.”

Cody fought against his inner feelings. He felt revulsion at the thought of torture. It cut against the grain of his Christian upbringing. But… these were trying times. These Rebels were no better than those damned Irish IRA men and women—terrorists, murderers.

“Do it,” Cody spoke through clenched teeth.

“But Senator Carson and the president…?”

“We’ll keep silent and maintain a low profile on this for as long as possible. If any reports get out, we deny them—right down the line. President Addison is a weak sister; Senator Carson is getting old. Don’t worry about them. I think now we must fight fire with fire. Get Sam Hartline. Have him meet you tomorrow and lay it out for him. Tell him to get his boys rolling.”

“Jeb Fargo and his bunch tried their hand against Ben Raines,” the senior agent reminded his boss. “You know where that got them. Dead.”

“And Kenny Parr,” Cody recalled. He sighed. “They are terrorists, Tommy. That’s how we have to look at the Rebels. Break them, Tommy. Just do it.”

Al Cody got in his car, tapped the driver on the shoulder, and drove away into the still-rainy night.

“Yes, sir,” Tommy Levant said softly. “But I don’t have to like it.”

The FBI of the late 1990s bore no resemblance to the crime-fighting Bureau of old. They were more an anti-guerrilla unit than an anti-crime organization. Organized crime, per se, was practically nonexistent; the bombings of 1988 had seen to that—worldwide.

The Bureau had men and women working on cases involving murder and rape and extortion and government-related criminal cases, but by and large they were pitted against Ben Raines and his Rebels.

And the men and women who made up the new FBI were not the highly educated and dedicated personnel of old. The bombings had not only changed the face of the United States, but had drastically altered the lifestyles of its remaining citizens. Factories and shops were once more rolling and producing, yes, but life was still a struggle for many of the survivors. Just putting bread and meat and potatoes on the table was an effort for many citizens… not just in the United States but worldwide.

The government, in the eyes of many, was failing the citizens. Ben Raines, on the other hand, had carved a working, workable, enjoyable, and productive society out of nothing and had done it in practically no time.

Why? asked the citizens. Why can’t this government do the same?

But government chose not to answer that—not to the satisfaction of the questioners. For if the government were to reply truthfully, that would reveal to the citizens that big government really didn’t work—and had not in years. One senator had glumly stated that Ben Raines’s form of government was so simple it was complex…

In Tri-States, the people were pulled together for many reasons: to conserve energy, to stabilize government, for easier care, and to afford more land for the production of crops, as well as to afford better protection for the people in health care, police, fire, and social services.

The elderly, for the first time in their lives, were looked after with care and concern and respect. They were not grouped together and forgotten and ignored. Careful planning went into the population centers of Tri-States. People of all age groups were carefully grouped together in housing and apartments. The elderly who wished to work and could work, were encouraged to do so. They could work until they tired, then they went home. Nothing was said whether they worked one hour or eight. No children’s games were played among the adults; no needling or pushing. There was nothing to prove. The knowledge of older citizens is vast and valuable; older citizens can teach so many things—if only the younger people would listen. In Tri-States they listened.

In order for this to work the pace must be slowed, the grind eased, the honor system restored; the work ethic, in both labor and management, renewed. It was.

In Tri-States, there was no such thing as the three-martini lunch and an hour’s nap. In Tri-States, management worked just as hard as labor, or they got out. Permanently.

Here, for the first time in decades, there was no welfare, no ADC, no WIC, no food stamps, no unemployment; but what took its place was jobs for all, and all adults worked. Those who would not because they felt the job was beneath their dignity, or because of laziness, apathy, and/or indifference, were escorted to the nearest border and given a good boot in the butt. They were told not to come back. If minor children were involved, the kids were taken from their parents and immediately adopted by a family in Tri-States.

Harsh treatment? Yes. Totally unconstitutional by American standards? Yes.

But it worked.

TWO

“Al Cody will never sit still for this,” Ben told his personal contingent of Rebels two days after the ambush of FBI agents. “We’ve got to move and do it quickly.”

Doctor Chase stood on the fringe of the group, glaring disapprovingly at Ben. The old doctor muttered something about Ben’s ancestry and walked away. “Man ought to be flat out on his back in bed,” Chase growled.

Ben said, “Order all units to shift positions immediately. They know the drill. We’re moving out of here now! Clear the camp. We’re moving to the Wyoming base. Move it, people!”

Jerre touched his arm. “Ben… you’re not strong enough for this trip. You…”

“I have to be, Jerre. We’ve got to move. This may be all it takes to push Cody off the deep end. You know what our intelligence people are reporting.”

Ike McGowen took it from there. “Torture, rape, physical humiliation; those are words right out of the last report we received, Jerre.” The ex-Navy SEAL chewed reflectively on a blade of grass.

“I can’t believe President Addison would go along with anything like that,” she said. “He’s… hell he’s a liberal. He was heavily into human rights in South America back in the early ‘80’s—so I’m told,” she blushed.

“Mere child,” Ike grinned.

The Medal of Honor-winning SEAL had been with Ben for a decade; one of the men who helped form Tri-States.

Ben grinned at him.

“What are you grinning about, El Presidente?” Ike asked.

“Remembering the first day I met you.”

“Long time back, partner.”

Ben had been traveling down the coast of Florida, spinning the dial on his truck radio when the music rolled from the speaker. The voice followed. Startled, Ben pulled off the highway onto a shoulder and listened.

“Bright beautiful day here in the city with the titties,” the voice said. “Temperature in the mid-seventies and you’re listening to the SEAL with the feel, Ike McGowen.”

Ben drove on, looking for a radio tower. He spotted what had to be the shakiest tower he’d ever seen, leaning precariously by an oceanside house. Ben, accompanied by Juno, a malamute who had adopted him outside of Jessup, Georgia, walked up to the house. They were met by a gaggle of scantily clad females, all carrying automatic weapons.

Ike’s radio station, Ben learned, was KUNT.

Ben wintered with Ike and his female companions. Not only did he winter with them, he married Ike and Megan Ann Green. The ceremony might not have been legal, but it was the best any of them could do at the time.

And Ike, Ben found, had been part of the Rebels long before the bombings of ‘88. Part of the group under the command of Ben’s old CO in Vietnam, Bull Dean.

Ben had heard of the Rebel movement—had been approached by a member of the group in ‘84—but had discounted the movement; laughed it off.

But as he traveled the country, he saw billboards reading: BEN RAINES—CONTACT US 39.2. When he finally did contact the mysterious party at frequency 39.2, he was astonished to learn that he had been placed in charge of all the Rebels.

Ben refused it.

Then Ike had told him, “Go on, General. Hell, I’m not going to push you. Travel the country. Your duty will come to you after a time.”

After the group in Florida broke up, each going their own way, Ben traveled many more miles, but the signs kept popping up: BEN RAINES—CONTACT US 39.2.

Ben finally “saw his duty.”

“Any individual found supporting the Rebels, actively or passively,” the network commentator intoned, “will be charged with treason. Highly placed sources within the Justice Department have told our reporters this move is necessary to stem the flow of arms and equipment to the Rebel movement currently operating in the United States. Ben Raines, the commanding officer of the Rebels has been placed at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. The…”

President Addison clicked off the TV set and punched a button on his desk.

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell the vice president I want to see him—now!”

“Right away, sir.”

VP Lowry was standing in the Oval Office within five minutes. Weston Lowry could see the rage in Addison’s eyes—the man was making no real effort to conceal it. And the VP was making no attempt to conceal his contempt for the president.

The two men disliked each other intensely.

“Whose idea was this treason business for citizens who imply support for Raines?” Addison questioned.

“I don’t believe imply was ever mentioned in the…”

“Goddamnit, you know what I mean!” Addison slammed his hand on the desk top. “What in the hell are you people trying to do, start a civil war? We’re still struggling to get our balance from the battering we took eleven years ago.”

“Mr. President, we sampled the views of Congress—all the key members…”

“I wasn’t told of that.”

Lowry ignored that. “…and they believe the only way this country will survive is to destroy Ben Raines and his Rebels. They…”

“The British tried that in Northern Ireland for years. It didn’t work there, and it won’t work here.”

“…also believe this threat is so serious as to fully warrant the term treason. If they have to, Mr. President, they have the votes to override any veto should it come to that.”

Addison was so angry he was trembling, his cheeks mottled with white flecks in the flush. “Lowry, I am going to call a press conference. During that press conference, I am going to disassociate myself from this scheme and publicly and categorically express my opposition to it.”

“That is certainly your privilege, sir.” Lowry maintained his composure.

“That will be all,” Addison said.

“Yes, sir.”

Lowry was grinning as he walked out of the office, being careful not to slam the door behind him.

The small convoy rolled through the night, speeding past deserted homes and through small empty towns. Ben rode in a car in the center of the armed convoy, asleep, his head on Jerre’s shoulder. James Riverson was at the wheel of the car. As so many of the Rebels in Ben’s personal contingent, Riverson had been with him for years.

“Don’t like it, Miss Jerre,” the huge ex-truck driver from Missouri said, his big hands making the steering wheel appear smaller than normal. Riverson had lost his wife, Belle, in the battle for Tri-States, and their children had been killed by government troops. Riverson hated the central government of the United States, and like so many Rebels, could not understand why Tri-States had been destroyed.

“Don’t like what, James?”

“The way all this is shaping up. The people are going to get caught right in the middle.”

“I know. So does Ben—he doesn’t like it either. He’s going to have leaflets printed, advising the people to stand clear.”

“You know they won’t do it. The majority of citizens don’t understand how we could build a workable society so quickly and their own non-elected officials—most of them, anyway—can’t seem to do anything. Talk, talk, talk. No action. Or damn little action, anyway.”

“Isn’t that the way it’s always been, James? You’re older than I am. Isn’t that the way it’s always been?”

He slowly nodded his head. “I reckon so, Miss Jerre. From 1980 on, I didn’t even bother voting.”

“That seems so sad, James.”

“It was. But hell, what was the point? Supreme Court and federal judges ran the country. The people didn’t have anything to say about it. Not the people who had any goddamn sense, that is.” He grinned in the dim light from the dash. “Excuse me, Miss Jerre. That was selfish of me to say. We all have rights. I just wish they’d have left us alone in Tri-States. We weren’t bothering a soul. Just being happy, that’s all we were doing.”

Ben groaned in his sleep.

“I wonder what the general is thinking of?” James said.

He had first met Salina in a motel in Indiana, just off the interstate. At first he thought she was a white woman traveling with a group of blacks. Since he had just come from visiting his brother in Chicago, where the blacks and whites were preparing to do their best to kill each other off, he thought that odd.

But as one member of the group had blurted—a white-hating member—Salina was a zebra.

“What does that mean?” Ben had later asked her, when they were alone.

“Half white, half black. Yes, my parents were married,” she told him.

“I didn’t think you were—”

“Pure coon,” she interrupted, but with a smile.

In the group were men and women who would later join Ben in the formation of Tri-States. Cecil Jefferys and his wife, Lila. Jake and his wife, Nora. Clint and Jane. And Ben and Salina would later marry. Salina, heavy with child, had been killed in the woods of Tri-States, during the last hours of the fight for survival.

So many had died for the dream.

Sam Hartline looked like the stereotyped Hollywood mercenary. Six feet, two inches, heavily muscled, a deep tan, dark brown hair just graying at the temples, cold green eyes, and a scar on his right cheek. He spoke to the one hundred FBI agents gathered in the old hotel in the deserted Virginia town. He did not have to speak to his own men; they had heard it all before.

“So you boys are gonna spearhead the move to kill Ben Raines, eh?” he grinned. “And you’re gonna do it by breaking the civilians who support him, right? Well, you’d all better have strong stomachs.” Again, he grinned. “I expect you do. You boys don’t look like that bunch that used to make up the Bureau. You boys look a sight tougher. I’ll tell you this: you damn well better be.”

He took a sip of water and again looked over the roomful of men. “Dealing with male prisoners prior to the actual interrogation,” he spoke impersonally. “Man… the protector of the home; the strong one. The techniques are diametrically opposite when dealing with the man as opposed to the woman. You must handle the male roughly—right from the beginning. You assault his male pride, his virility, his manhood, his penis power. You take the clothes from the man by force and leave him naked before you. A naked man feels defenseless. He will lose much of his arrogant pride.

“With a woman it is quite different. Do not use physical force except as a last resort. You order her to remove her clothing. You demand it. Make her disrobe. Thus her dignity has, from the beginning, rotted. A very important first beginning.

“Don’t let them sleep. Interrupt them every few minutes while they lie in their cells, imagining all sorts of dire and exotic tortures lying in wait for them. Lack of sleep disturbs the brain patterns; disrupts the norm, so to speak.

“I will give you gentlemen an example.” He motioned toward a man standing by a closed door.

The man opened the door and two of Hartline’s men pushed a young man out into the large meeting room. The man was in his late twenties, unshaven, red and bleary-eyed. He was pushed onto the small stage.

“Good morning, Victor,” Hartline said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

The man said nothing.

“Remove your clothing, Victor,” Hartline said, smiling.

“Fuck you!”

Hartline laughed and motioned toward the two burly men. They wrestled the young man down on the stage and tore his clothing from him, pulling him to his feet to stand nude, facing the roomful of strangers.

“You see, Victor,” Hartline said, “you are a baby. I can do with you anything I choose, at any time I choose. Remember that, Victor. It might save you a lot of pain. Now then, Victor… who is the leader of your cell?”

Victor stood impassively, with as much dignity as he could muster. The agents in the room all tried to keep their eyes from the young man’s groin.

“Victor, Victor,” Hartline said. “Why are you doing this? You know you’re going to tell me what I want to know.”

“If you’re going to torture me,” the young man said, “get it over with.”

Hartline laughed, exposed strong, white, even teeth. “Oh, Victor! I’m not going to torture you, my boy. Oh, my, no.” He cut his eyes to the man by the closed door.

The door opened and another pair of men pulled a young woman into the room. That they were closely related was evident by their features. Both Victor and the young woman had the same delicate features and skin coloration, the same pale eyes.

“Rebecca!” Victor shouted, lunging for her. Strong hands grabbed him, halting him in mid-flight. “You son of a bitch!” he cursed Hartline.

The mercenary laughed. “Tie him into that chair over there,” he pointed. “Hands behind the back, ankles to the legs.”

Hartline looked at the young woman. Something evil touched his eyes. “Now, my dear, you may disrobe.”

“No, I won’t,” she said defiantly, holding her chin high.

Hartline chuckled. “Oh, I think you shall, Rebecca, dear. Yes, indeed.”

Hartline picked up a small cattle prod and adjusted the level of voltage. He walked to Victor’s side. He lifted his eyes to the woman. “Take off your clothes.”

“No,” she whispered.

Hartline touched the cattle prod to Victor’s bare arm and activated it. The young man jerked in the chair and yelled in pain.

“Don’t do it, sis! I can stand it.”

Hartline laughed and touched the prod to Victor’s penis. The young man screamed in agony, his jerking toppling over the chair.

“All right,” Rebecca said. “Don’t hurt him anymore. I’ll do what you say.”

“That’s a dear girl,” the mercenary smiled.

As Rebecca disrobed, the mercenary walked in circles around her, commenting on her figure: the slender shapeliness of her legs as she peeled off her jeans; the firmness of her breasts; the jutting nipples; and finally the mat of pubic hair.

Hartline smiled as some of the men whistled. “You see, boys. There are other benefits to be reaped from all this. Or should I say raped?”

The roomful of men laughed.

Hartline ran his hands over the girl’s flesh, lingering between her legs. He looked over at Victor, now righted in his chair. “The name of your cell leader, young man, for I assure you, game time is all over.”

“Don’t tell him, Victor!” Rebecca called. “Our lives mean nothing. We can stand it; we’re not worth anything to this beast dead. He won’t kill us.”

Hartline smiled. “How astute of you, my dear. Quite right. But sometimes death is preferable to living?”

She smiled at him.

“You doubt it? Oh, my dear—how naive you are. I have seen human beings reduced to madmen, every inch of skin stripped from them—and still they lived, praying to die. I have seen… ah… I do so hate to be crude… various objects forced into a man’s anus; have you ever seen what happens to a man when a thin, hollow piece of glass is inserted into the penis and then the penis is tapped lightly with a club? The pain is excruciating—so I’m told. But we don’t need to go into all that sordid type of truth-seeking, do we, dear?”

She spat in his face.

“Oh, my dear,” Hartline said, wiping the spittle from his cheeks. “Now you’ve made me angry.” He looked at Victor. “One more time, Vic-baby: the name of your cell leader.”

Victor shook his head.

Hartline looked back at the young woman.

“I’ll never tell you,” she said.

Hartline leaned his head down and kissed one nipple, running his tongue around the nipple, thoroughly wetting it. He straightened up and placed the cattle prod on Rebecca’s breast. “One of you will,” he said.

“What are we to do?” Senator Carson asked President Addison. “This nation cannot endure a civil war.”

“I don’t know, Bill,” Aston said, drumming his fingertips on his desk. “It’s a personal thing between Cody and Raines. Cody’s brother was killed in Tri-States. How much support do I really have, Bill?”

The old senator sighed. He had been in the Senate longer than any man still alive: since 1960, sliding in on Jack Kennedy’s bandwagon. He had seen much, this old aging liberal. Back during the bombings, and immediately thereafter, he had been presumed dead. But he had been vacationing in the mountains of North Carolina when the rumors of war had first surfaced. He had elected not to return to Washington when he learned of the military’s taking control of the nation just hours before the nuclear and germ warfare blew the world apart.

“Damn little,” Carson finally replied. “I have never, in all my years serving the people, seen such a drastic shift in the feelings of my colleagues. I… can’t get through to them that we cannot—must not—allow this to erupt into a civil war. They just won’t listen.”

“I’ll give you odds Weston Lowry has something to do with it.”

“No takers, Aston. I see his fine devious hand all over this. I warned you, Aston; I urged you not to pick that bastard.”

Aston shrugged. “I had to do something to placate the law-and-order boys,” he explained. “Hell, Bill, you know that.” He met the older man’s level gaze. “They really have the votes—in both houses?”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to be bloody and awful.”

“Yes.”

“Who is Sam Hartline?”

“Sam Hartline is a goddamned psychopath,” Cecil Jefferys told Ike and Ben. “And one hardline nigger-hater. He was with Jeb Fargo outside Chicago back in ‘88 and ‘89.”

The day before Ben first met Cecil and Salina, he had visited his brother in a suburb of Chicago. What he had seen shocked and appalled him. Ben could not believe the change in his older brother.

He had been stopped at a roadblock, refused entrance into the suburbs. “You gotta stay and fight with us,” a man told him.

“What?” Ben asked.

“We’re gonna wipe those damned niggers out,” the man told him. “Once and for all. Then we can rebuild a decent society.”

Ben didn’t believe what he was hearing. Ben Raines was anything but a screaming liberal, but he knew there was good and bad among all races. He let the man rave on until he was finally allowed to see his brother. He could not believe the change in Carl Raines. He had argued with Carl, trying to reason with him, to get him to leave—get his family and come with Ben.

“No way,” Carl told him. “I’m stayin’ here and protectin’ my home.”

“Your home!” Ben had yelled. “Hell, Carl, there are millions of homes standing empty across the nation. Take your choice. Live in the governor’s mansion if you like.”

“Be niggers in there, eatin’ fried chicken and doin’ the funky-humpy in the governor’s office.”

Ben had argued on, attempting to change his brother’s mind, until a voice from behind him ended it.

“Why don’t you just carry your Jew-lovin’, nigger-lovin’ ass on away from here?”

He wore the uniform of a Nazi storm-trooper. A swastika on his sleeve. Jeb Fargo.

The crowd gathering was hostile.

Ben and his brother did not shake hands before Ben left, pushing his way through the crowd.

“Sam came after my time in Africa,” Ben said. “But I kept up with events over there; guys writing me every now and then. I’ve heard of him. He’s an expert at torture. I can’t believe Addison is going along with this.”

“He isn’t,” Cecil said. “Word we’re getting is a power play in Richmond. Lowry wants the White House all to himself.”

“Where does the military stand?” Ben asked.

“My troops are split,” General Rimel of the Air Force spoke to his counterparts of the other services. “But it isn’t an equal balance. I think… perhaps a third of my men would actively wage war against Raines and his Rebels.”

“It galls my balls to say it,” General Franklin of the Marine Corps said, “but that’s about the percentage of my men, too.”

“Same here,” General Preston of the Army said.

“Yeah,” Admiral Calland of the Navy agreed.

“So are we out of it?” Rimel asked.

“Except for selected units, yes, I would say so,” Franklin said. “But about a hundred of Cody’s men are meeting with Sam Hartline down in a deserted town on the Tennessee border right now.”

“Hartline?” Preston said. “The mercenary?”

“One and the same.”

“How many men does Hartline have?”

“Several thousand, and they’re all experienced fighters.”

Calland was thoughtful for a moment. “How many personnel in Raines’s command?”

“The Rebels probably can field no more than three or four thousand fighters at any given time,” Preston told him. “Our intelligence reports just over a battalion in each of the four sections of the nation. He’s got General Krigel in the east; Major Conger in the mid-north; Colonel Ramos in the south-west; General Bill Hazen in the mid-west. But he’s got small units all over the goddamned place. And if Cody and Hartline move directly against the people, Raines will declare a full-scale civil war.”

“And he’ll use guerrilla tactics, too,” Franklin spoke.

“Damn right, he will. Raines was a Hell Hound, trained by Adams and Dean.”

“And he’s still got Ike McGowen with him. Medal of Honor-winner. ex-SEAL,” Admiral Calland said respectfully.

“Well, gentlemen,” General Rimel said, “you all know where I stood on invading Tri-States. I was opposed to it. Now, I—none of us—can directly come out and disobey a Presidential order, or an order from the Congress of the United States. If we do that, we’re taking sides.” He spread his hands in a gesture of “what next, boys?”

“I suggest we speak—very quietly—with our field commanders,” Preston said. “Base CGs and admirals. All conversations private and scrambled; nose to nose if at all possible. I also would suggest, after we’ve done that, that we get word to Raines telling him how many of us are out of this thing.”

“Damn!” General Franklin said. “I hate even the idea of that.”

“Well,” Preston smiled, needling the Marine, “we never promised you a rose garden.”

“Oh, goddamn, Jerry!” Franklin groaned.

Victor watched as the fifth man mounted his sister as if she were a dog. He tried to push her screaming from his head. He could not. “All right,” the young man said weakly. “Get away from her. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

The man pulled himself from the young woman and wiped his penis. “Gettin’ kinda sloppy anyway,” he said. “She’s bleedin’ from the ass.”

“Get a doctor to see her,” Hartline ordered one of his men. “Immediately. I want the people to know if they cooperate with me, I will be fair with them.”

Rebecca was carried from the room.

Hartline knelt by Victor’s chair. “Now, young man, give me a name.”

Late that night, a man’s front door was kicked in and the man dragged from his bed. He was taken to an old National Guard Camp in Central Virginia, temporary billeting for Sam Hartline’s mercenaries.

The man was taken to an office and tossed on the floor. When he looked up, Sam Hartline was standing over him. The mercenary was smiling.

“Mr. Samuelson,” Hartline said. “You have a lot of knowledge I wish you to share with me.”

“No way,” Samuelson said.

The mercenary’s smile widened. “Why, Mr. Samuelson, surely you don’t mean that.”

“I mean it.”

“Before you make such rash statements, sir,” Hartline said, “perhaps you should speak with your daughter, Ruth. You see, sir, she is… ah… shall we say, busy entertaining some of my men just down the hall.”

“I don’t believe you,” Samuelson said.

Samuelson was jerked to his feet and pulled and dragged down the hall. Hartline stood smiling before a closed door.

“Believe, Mr. Samuelson,” he said. “Believe.” He pushed open the door.

THREE

Spring drifted slowly and softly into early summer. A strange peace lay over the country; but both sides knew it was a prelude before violence. A quiet before the nation erupted into civil war.

One eastern-based cell had been destroyed. Samuelson and his daughter Ruth were being held under tight security at the base Hartline used for training purposes. Samuelson had been wrung dry of all useful information. The man was only a shadow of his former self. He had been broken both physically and mentally. His daughter, Ruth, had been sexually abused with such frequency she had broken mentally and was past any point of saving. She sat in her cell and sang children’s songs. She had pulled all the hair from her head.

On June 1, 1999, a semi-military court, made up of military men and women loyal to Cody and Lowry, Hartline mercenaries, and two extremely frightened citizens from a local town, sentenced Samuelson and his daughter to hanging for high treason against the government of the United States.

The trial lasted twenty minutes. Father and daughter were hanged the following morning, at dawn.

In Washington, President Addison sat in his private quarters with Senator Carson. The old senator from Vermont, usually quite eloquent, was decidedly coarse when he finally spoke.

“The shit is about to hit the fan, Aston.”

“And there isn’t a goddamned thing any of us can do about it.”

“True.”

“I’m really just a figurehead, aren’t I, Bill?”

“That’s about what it comes down to, yes.”

“I have given serious thought to resigning.”

“Don’t. I have this hope that after a few weeks or months, when my colleagues see how bloody and awful and needless this war is they’ll come to their senses and turn against Cody and Lowry. If that happens, we’ll need you in the White House.”

The president shook his head. “It won’t happen, Billy. You’re dreaming. I see things much clearer now. Logan was grooming Lowry all along; but kept him in the background deliberately. I’m remembering things now that I considered minor and unimportant when they occurred.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’m remembering all the times Hilton met with Lowry. I know Dallas Valentine was having an affair with Logan’s wife, Fran, but now that I look back, I believe Lowry was, too.”

“The lady certainly stayed busy, didn’t she?” Carson said dryly.

“Quite. I’m recalling some inner-office about Lowry being the man in the shadows, so to speak; about him actually being the brains behind Hilton Logan all the time. Sure. Jeb Fargo was run out of Mississippi and settled in Georgia—just outside of Atlanta.” Aston smiled. “Where is Lowry from, Bill?”

The old man stirred in his chair. “Georgia. Smyrna, I believe. You’re putting it all together, Aston.”

“Finally. And far too late.”

“Maybe not. This may be all I need to convince enough people in both houses of a power play.”

“Providing they are not involved in it.”

“Unfortunately, I have thought of that, also.”

“And your conclusion?”

“I think some are involved. How many…?” He shrugged his shoulders.

“That father and daughter who were hanged this morning. Samuelson. Gruesome business. I wonder what Raines’s thinking is on the matter?”

Ben was once more a hundred percent physically. And at that moment, he was one hundred percent angry. Not a hot raging anger, but a cold deadly one. He stopped his restless pacing and turned to Ike. The ex-SEAL was sitting patiently in the squad tent, a CAR-15 across his lap.

“We’ve got to start all over again, ol’ buddy,” Ben said.

“True.” Ike waited. When Ben didn’t immediately speak, Ike said, “You’re not blaming Samuelson and his kid?”

“Oh, hell, no, Ike! There isn’t a man or woman in this world that wouldn’t break under the right kind of torture. No, I’m not blaming them. I’m just sick that it happened.”

“Twelve cells smashed. More than two hundred people taken,” Cecil said. “It makes me physically ill to imagine what is happening to those people at this time.”

“I try not to think about it,” Doctor Chase said. He glanced at Ben. “Are you going to retaliate, Ben?”

Ben was slow in replying. Chase was about to repeat the question when Ben said, “Yes… I am. But not in the manner that is expected of us.”

“Arm the people?” Cecil said.

“Yes, but there again, we’re going to move slowly. I spent a sleepless night last night. I’ve thought it out carefully, and my mind is made up.”

The men waited for Ben to give the order to start the killing.

“Cody and Hartline are going to be very disappointed in the Rebel movement for the next six months to a year, I’m thinking.” Ben smiled at the startled and puzzled looks on the faces of the men. “We are going to rebuild—from the ground up. We are going to reopen old training bases in the mountains and the deserts; we are going to stockpile and train and we are going to keep our heads down low; so low if we got any lower our buttons would be in the way.”

Ben began his restless pacing. It was his habit when deep in excited thought. “One year from this date, gentlemen, we are going to strike. We are going to hit so hard, and in so many places, with such force, we are going to knock the pins right out from under Cody, Hartline, and the members of Congress who support them. On June 2, 2000, we are going to take this government and give it back to the people.” He smiled. “At least take the first step, that is.

“Ike, get on the horn and get our field commanders ready to receive. I want the message coded and scrambled. Tell them there will not be one incidence of revenge or retaliation for the hanging of Samuelson and his daughter or for the breaking up of the cells. Not until I give the word. Any Rebel who disobeys this order will be subject to court-martial, and I will personally shoot that person.

“One year, gentlemen. One year. When civilization takes its first struggling steps into the year 2000, that is when we strike.”

The meeting was over.

Outside the tent, out of earshot, Cecil said, “I thought Tri-States’ undertaking was a mammoth operation. But Ben’s about to start taking some giant steps, Ike.”

Before Ike could reply, Doctor Chase said, “Well, boys, I’ll say this for the crazy goddamn gun soldier: if anyone can do it, he can.”

By mid-summer of 1999, the survivors of the bombings of 1988 came full-face with hard reality: America was in the grip of a police state.

All police were federalized; they could cross city limits, lines, county lines, state lines. The Federal Bureau of Investigation seemed to change overnight, turning into an organization of frightening proportions. Some citizens compared the new FBI to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo of years past.

One word against the government in Richmond would bring the police or the FBI thundering to a person’s door. No warrant needed; no knock required.

The Big Eye and the Big Ear seemed to be everywhere. No one knew whom to trust. The government would pay handsomely for information of citizens disloyal to the government. An informant would get extra rations of meat and sugar and gas and clothing.

Shortly after the worldwide bombings of 1988, when Hilton Logan was installed as president of the United States, the government began its program of collecting all handguns and high-powered rifles and the relocating of citizens. Logan settled as much of the east coast as could be, avoiding the “hot areas,” filled with deadly radiation. As a result, many states, especially those states not a part of the bread-basket region, were practically void of human life.

Into those states Ben would send his Rebels to train new people.

June 10, 1999

Hartline’s Base Camp, Virginia

The four women and one man had been sexually attacked numerous times as a prelude to their questioning concerning other cells on the east coast sympathetic to Ben Raines’s Rebels.

A Mrs. Linda Ford was then taken into one of the interrogation rooms. The soles of her feet were beaten with billy clubs as were her buttocks and thighs. The beating continued all afternoon and into the night. She was thrown into a basement cell that had several inches of stagnant water covering the floor. Her feet were broken and her toenails were missing. She would die of pneumonia after a month. She would not be allowed a doctor’s care.

A Robin Lewis was sodomized and then tortured with jolts of electricity to her feet. The wires were then clamped to her lips and the electricity turned on. So severe were the jolts she broke her teeth grinding them against the charges of electricity and the waves of pain. The voltage was increased to such a level Ms. Lewis suffered severe brain damage.

Riva Madison was burned with cigarette and cigar butts. All her fingers were broken and her knees shattered with club blows.

Paul Murray was hanged by his wrists, his feet a foot off the floor. He was beaten and tortured by electric shock applied to his genitals. He would lose both hands due to gangrene.

Claire Boiling was repeatedly raped and subjected to every imaginable type of sexual abuse, including electrical current passed through and into her vagina by usage of a metal dildo. A procedure allegedly perfected by the SAVAK in Iran in the 1970s. Claire would live, but she would be unable to bear children.

Neither Mrs. Ford, Robin Lewis, Riva Madison, Paul Murray, or Ms. Boiling was able to tell their interrogators anything but the truth.

And the truth was… they did not know anything concerning the operation of other cells.

On July 1, Ben began traveling from state to state, meeting with his commanders. It was dangerous, but something that had to be done. By the end of August, his field commanders had recruited 7,200 men and women. Ben and his commanders knew there were government informers among them, but did nothing about it until the 7,200 had been broken up into small training groups and sent to various bases in the mountains, the deserts, the plains, the swamps.

It was then the government agents and spies learned the hard truth of infiltrating anything Ben Raines set up.

Each unit had several men and women trained in the use of Psychological Stress Evaluators, polygraph machines, and truth serums such as thiopental, scopoline, and other drugs which induce truth under hypnosis.

There, each volunteer was tested thoroughly and rigorously. Nothing was left to chance. They were hanged and buried in unmarked graves. Nothing was released to the government. Let them think their people were still alive, Ben told his Rebels.

It was frustrating to the federal police and the FBI and Hartline’s men. The silence from the agents supposed to be sending back data on the Rebels’ training bases infuriated Al Cody. The man was too vain and too sure of his people to even consider the possibility his people had been caught and killed.

Not all forty of them. Impossible.

Once the original seventy-two companies of one hundred new Rebels was set, it was very difficult to join Ben’s Rebels. Any new applicant was held in a safe house or spot for two to three weeks. The applicant was subjected to severe testing and questioning the entire time. Shortly the very best of the volunteers got into the actual fighting field units of the new Rebels.

There were ugly rumors circulating around the nation’s capital concerning the military’s alleged policy of total noninvolvement in any upcoming confrontation between the Rebels and the police. These were rumors that amused President Addison and Senator Carson; rumors that infuriated VP Lowry and Director Cody.

Then, on the first Sunday in August, 1999, violence erupted in the Great Smoky Mountains, one of the major training bases for Ben’s Rebels. President Addison was at the presidential retreat and could not be reached for comment, so VP Lowry, with Cody by his side, called a special meeting at the VP’s home outside Richmond.

Seated around the VP and Cody were: General Rimel of the Air Force; General Preston of the Army; Admiral Calland of the Navy; General Franklin of the Marine Corps; and Admiral Barstow of the Coast Guard. The Joint Chiefs of Staff.

VP Lowry cleared his throat, fiddled with his tie, and brushed back a few strands of carefully dyed hair. He said, “Gentlemen, I’ve heard some very unhappy news. Unsettling, to say the least. Heard it on the TV, read it in the Richmond Post. I can only conclude that at least part of it is true. Now, I’d be the first to concede that we may have a bit of a problem within the borders of our nation. But it’s nothing that can’t be cleared up if we all cooperate.

“The press is making a bad mistake, gentlemen. They have begun to romanticize Ben Raines’s Rebels, calling them Freedom’s Rebels and Freedom’s Rangers. That pack of off-center screwballs has to be stopped…”

“Are you referring to the Rebels or to the press?” General Rimel asked with a straight face.

VP Lowry’s expression grew hard and he started to fire his reply back to the general. Instead, he fought to calm himself. He took a deep breath and drummed his fingertips on the desk.

“General Rimel, I do not believe this is the time for levity—lame as it may be, and certainly in bad taste. You all know where the president stands on this issue. Like Pilate, he has washed his hands of the entire matter. But gentlemen, the majority of both houses of Congress backs my plan to rid the nation of these Rebels—and were I you, I would bear that in mind. Now I want to know where the military stands on this issue.”

“The military stands where it always stands,” Admiral Calland said, a flat tone to his voice. “Ready, willing, and able to repel any invaders who threaten our shores.”

“Would that it were,” Preston muttered under his breath. It was muttered so only Admiral Calland could hear.

The Navy man fought to hide a smile.

VP Lowry spun in his chair and turned his back to the men gathered around his desk in the study. Lowry looked out the window. It was raining again. Miserable day. He sighed. He had just received word—after hearing it on TV, which irritated him—of the closing of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. It was estimated that about 1,500 Rebels were located in the more than half million acres of the park. They had taken it over. They had mined the place and stuck trip flares all over the area. Manned machine-gun posts were hidden in well-stocked bunkers, and Tennessee and North Carolina had already lost more than a hundred federal police and highway patrol and they hadn’t even gotten close to the main area. They were ambushed every time they turned around. Both states were requesting help from the Army or the National Guard or some goddamned thing.

When Lowry had called President Addison, Aston had laughed at him.

Lowry knew the military would refuse when he asked them for help. The bastards had said, and Lowry’s informants had relayed the news to him, that the military would not lift a finger against Raines.

Lowry turned slowly to face the military. “This nation,” he said, “is on the verge of civil war, and you tell me some drivel about repelling foreign invaders. What foreign invaders? There isn’t a power on the face of this globe strong enough to even consider the idea of attacking us. Now… you men listen to me. I want those… these Rebels stopped, and by God, you people,” he pointed his finger at all the military men, “are going to stop them.”

“No, sir,” General Franklin stuck out his chin. “We are not.”

Al Cody paled at this, fighting back hot anger welling up inside him. He remained silent.

Lowry sat back in his chair and stared at the Joint Chiefs. He returned his gaze to the Marine. It was very quiet in the room. When the VP spoke, his words were barely audible. “Would one of you men mind clearing that up just a bit?”

Marine Corps looked at Navy, and Navy glanced at Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard, receiving a slight nod from each man. Admiral Calland lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “May I speak frankly, Mr. Vice President?”

“By all means, Admiral, please do.”

“Mr. Lowry, we are all aware of the feelings that exist between you and the president. We are equally aware of the power play now going on in the capitol. The military had to take control of this nation back in ‘88—I hope to God we won’t ever have to do that again. And right now, sir, we have no intention of doing that. But…” he let his words with the implied threat trail off into silence.

The admiral tapped his cigarette ash into the ashtray on Lowry’s desk. “Now then, Mr. Lowry, the Rebels have no beef with the military, and we have none with them. We are not attacking any of their bases—even though we know where most are located—and they will not attack any of our bases.”

“Then you all have been in communication with the Rebels?” Cody asked, his face flushed with anger.

“We have.”

“Traitors!” the FBI director shouted.

General Franklin looked at the man. “How would you like me to slap your fucking teeth down your throat?”

Cody leaned back in his chair. He not only knew the Marine could, but would do just that. He was somewhat afraid of career soldiers, having never served in the military himself. Old football injury.

“No, Lowry,” Admiral Calland continued, “the Rebels have no beef with us, and we have none with them. Their beef is with you and Cody and Hartline and your high-handed police state and your dictatorial powers…”

“You can’t speak to me like that!” Lowry shouted.

“The hell I can’t!” the admiral barked. “Now you deck your ass back in that chair and listen to me! You federalized the police without consulting the people. You stripped them of their weapons. You put into effect a no-knock policy that has the citizens terrified in their own homes. You’ve beefed up the police and hired a goddamn mercenary army. You’ve sent spies and informants into every state. You’ve created confusion and suspicion and fear among the people who pay your salary and mine. Everything you and Cody are doing—and much of what was done by Logan—is in direct violation of the constitution. It shouldn’t come as any shock that the people support Ben Raines.”

General Franklin took it. “Who is running this country, Mr. Vice President, you or Addison?”

“The Congress put Addison in office, now they are disenchanted with him. But he can remain as a figurehead.”

“So much for democracy,” Admiral Barstow said.

“These are trying times, gentlemen,” Cody said, speaking in controlled tones. “But we are making strides toward a return to normalcy. I don’t have to tell you men why we took the guns from the citizens; but perhaps you do need a reminder: half-baked cults and orders were popping up all over the nation. We did it to hold this Union together…”

“Horseshit!” General Franklin said. “You did it… and you did it, gentlemen, you and Cody, so you could sit up here in Richmond like some fat cat East Indian potentate and rule the people without fear of them kicking you out.”

“I resent that, General,” Lowry said.

“I don’t give a shit what you resent,” the Marine replied. “Listen to me, boys—listen to us,” he waved his hand, indicating the other brass. “We will not be a part of any civil war. We will not have our men split apart like the Blue and the Gray.” He looked at his fellow chiefs of staff. They nodded in agreement.

VP Lowry was seething inwardly but he managed to smile at the brass. “All right, gentlemen. We’ll crush Ben Raines and his Rebels. It would have been easier with your help, but we’ll manage without it. Thank you for your continuing vigilance in guarding our shores. That will be all.”

His sarcasm was not lost on the military leaders.

When Lowry was once more alone with Cody, the VP said, “Get with Senator Slate and Representative Tyler. Get a bill through restricting what the press can report. Full censorship, if possible. All material must be cleared by our people. And, Al… crush the Rebels. I don’t care how you and Hartline do it—but do it!”

FOUR

Dressed in white Levis and matching jacket, and carrying a half-dozen cameras, Dawn Bellever was a respected and experienced photographer. She’d worked all kinds of assignments since she was a kid reporter back in ‘88, just before the bombings blew everything to hell. But this demonstration in Richmond was shaping up to be a real bitch-kitty. Dawn could feel it.

She stood calmly by the police line, snapping away at the police and the protestors.

“Give us back our guns!” a man shouted. “You have no right to seize private property.”

Dawn looked around her, trying to see who the man was shouting at. She could see no one. Shouting in general, she supposed.

Many of these people wanted to go back home. Wanted to return to the homes and lands they had been forced to leave during President Logan’s relocation efforts back in ‘89. Others wanted their guns returned to them; some wanted jobs, food, clothing.

Only area that ever really recovered was Ben Raines’s Tri-States, Dawn thought. She wondered about General Raines. Wondered if maybe he hadn’t had the right idea all along.

A federal cop slamming his billy club on a head brought Dawn back to reality. She took a picture of the man, on his knees, blood pouring from a gash in his forehead.

“Watch that cunt with the camera,” a cop said to another officer. “Don’t let her out of your sight. We got to get those films.”

“Your ass, pig,” Dawn muttered. She smiled at herself for using a word whose popularity had peaked before she was born.

She stepped a few feet closer to the line of boots, belts, badges, helmets, guns, sunglasses, shields, and riot shotguns. She thought it ironic that a small American flag was sewn on the right sleeve of each officer’s shirt or jacket.

Aren’t these Americans you’re beating? she silently questioned.

She snapped away and stepped back, totally disregarding the new censorship order from the Justice Department and the hallowed halls of Congress. She wound the film and darted up to the police line, snapping away. This time she didn’t make it. A long arm shot out and snagged her by her long blond hair. She yelped in pain and dropped one camera. Another federal cop standing nearby casually lifted one booted foot and smashed the expensive piece of equipment. Just as his boot came down on the camera, Dawn heard the pop of tear-gas guns. Most of the black-jacketed line of federal police moved out, up the street. Dawn looked up at the cop who’d destroyed her camera and screamed at him.

“You miserable bastard!” she yelled, getting to her feet. She kicked out at him, catching him with a sand-colored boot in the balls. He doubled over, puking, lost his balance, and tumbled forward. His helmet, chin strap loose, fell off and rolled to the street. The cop was a big man, overweight, and when his forehead hit the street, it sounded like an overripe melon struck with a hammer. The cop lay very still.

Dawn heard the sounds of boots on the concrete. Turning, she had time enough to see the cop’s right arm raised, a night stick in his hand. He brought the baton down on Dawn’s head. Dawn slumped to her knees, stunned. She raised her bleeding head and squalled at the second cop.

“Bastard!” she screamed, tears of pain and rage glistening on her cheeks, the tears just ahead of a bright trail of crimson.

The cop, a burly, red-faced, 200-pounder, grinned at her through his plastic face-shield, raised his baton, and whacked her again. Dawn dropped flat on the street. The cop turned his back to her and watched the action at the other end of the street.

People were screaming, the air choking with gas. Dawn could barely hear the thud of billy clubs on bone and flesh and the snarl of police dogs as they bit through cloth and into flesh. No one paid the fallen blonde any attention.

She did not know how long she had lain in the street. But when she opened her eyes everything was hazy. She waited for her vision to clear. Shots were fired, someone yelled in a hoarse bellow of pain. Dawn turned her head and found herself looking at a nickel-plated pistol. It lay beside the still unmoving mass of the cop she’d booted in the nuts. She crawled a few inches closer to the gun. She could read the printing on the barrel. 357 magnum. The cop who had clubbed her the second time stood with his back to her, watching the fighting and screaming and running at the far end of the street.

Then he ran down the street, leaving her alone.

Dawn picked up the pistol, thinking how heavy it was. As an afterthought, she reached over the still-breathing federal cop and plucked out the bullets from his belt, putting those in her jacket pocket and buttoning the flap.

Unknowingly, Dawn Bellever had just taken the first step toward joining Ben Raines’s Rebels.

She knew absolutely nothing of guns. She crawled to her knees and hunkered in the street, the blood still dripping from her head. She reversed the pistol and peered down the barrel. Somebody, somewhere close, opened up with some type of automatic weapon, the narrow street reverberating with the boom of rapid fire. People were running all around her. She heard a woman screaming, looked to her right, and saw the second cop who’d hit her holding a young woman against a building. He was hitting her with his night stick.

“Well,” Dawn said stupidly, “I’m not going to tolerate that.”

Something was fuzzy in her head, fouling up her thinking. Dawn shook her head and raised the pistol. Again, she was looking down the barrel. She righted the weapon, gripped it with both hands, just like she’d seen cops do in the movies, took careful aim at the cop’s right leg, and pulled the trigger.

She blew half his head off.

The recoil knocked her flat on the street and numbed her hands. But she still gripped the magnum. She got to her knees and looked around her. The young woman the now-dead cop had been hammering on was running toward her, the officer’s weapon in her hand.

The girl’s face was bloody, her eyes burning with an intensity that Dawn recognized as near-fanaticism. She jerked Dawn to her feet. “That’s the same cop who raped me last week,” she said, pointing to the unconscious officer in the street. “I was one of ‘em who broke out of the tank.”

“Raped you!” Dawn said, not believing what the girl was saying.

The young woman’s eyes flicked to the PRESS badge on Dawn’s jacket. “You people don’t know where it’s at, do you? Yeah, raped. Come on, I’ll tell you about it. We gotta get out of here.”

They ran toward an alley and jumped into the back of a van. The driver roared off the instant the women were inside.

“Where are we going?” Dawn asked, a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. She had killed a man. Worse, she had killed a federal cop. And she was known. Dawn’s face was very well known. As were other parts of her anatomy.

She had posed semi-nude for the new Penthouse twice.

The young woman wiped blood from her face. “Tennessee.” She looked at Dawn. “Hey, that was fine shooting. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“I was aiming at his right leg,” Dawn said. Then her world began spinning and she passed out.

The woman wore a worried expression on her usually cheerful face. She entered Professor Mailer’s office without knocking, something she rarely did. Steve Mailer noticed her grim expression and smiled at his secretary.

She ignored the usually infectious grin from the boyish-looking professor of English Literature. “There are two men in the outer office,” she said. “They’re from the FBI. Or whatever that pack of rabble is currently called.”

“I am not a fan of the late Mr. Hoover,” Steve said. “Only from what I’ve read about him, I think perhaps the man is spinning in his grave at what his brainchild has become. I have been expecting the… gentlemen, Mrs. Rommey.” He stood up, a slender man, several inches under six feet. He could not get his weight above a hundred and thirty-five pounds. But he was wiry and tough and in excellent physical condition. He quickly wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to his secretary.

“I may be leaving in a few minutes,” he said. “Without them,” he cut his eyes to the closed door. “If that is the case, I want you to call the number on that piece of paper and tell whomever answers that class has been dismissed.”

She watched as he took a pistol from a desk drawer and held it by his right leg. “All right,” she said. “Steve, I remember you as a freshman; you were against any type of violence.”

Steve shrugged. “Times change. People grow up and hopefully become wiser. I think I have. Don’t ask me if I’m part of the Rebels, Mrs. Rommey—the men working for Al Cody are known for their expertise in torture.”

“Open this fuckin’ door!” a harsh voice rang from the outer office.

“Use the rear entrance,” Steve told her. “Now!”

She left, tears in her eyes.

“As Shakespeare said,” Steve muttered. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” The professor smiled. “Come on in, motherfuckers!” he yelled. He cocked the pistol.

Just off the campus of the University of South Carolina, in a private home, Lynne Hoffman spoke before a small group of men and women. Their ages ranged from fifteen to sixty. Lynne was the head of her particular cell of nonviolent Rebels. Although they believed quite strongly in what the Rebels were attempting to do, their jobs were in gathering supplies and caching them. None of her people carried firearms.

All that was to change this night.

“We don’t have much time,” Lynne told the group. “One of those captured in the Virginia raid has broken, telling Cody’s men about us. We’ve got to run and we’ve got to fight. We…”

The front door slammed open and the small foyer filled with federal police and Hartline’s mercenaries. “You’re under arrest!” a man yelled. “Get your hands over your head and get up against the wall. Move, goddammit, move!”

Lynne jumped for the back door just as someone plunged the room into darkness. Gunfire rocked the night and someone began screaming in pain. Lynne and two others made it out of the house, running into the night.

“Burn the goddamn house down around them,” a man yelled.

Out in the desert, the night animals began their search for food. The hawk for a rabbit; the snake for a mouse; the mouse for a hole. But on this night, another type of hunt was underway. Mike Medlow, a federal police officer from Modesto searched for Judy Fowler.

Ever since he’d handled her lush little body during a campus demonstration, Medlow had tried every way he could think of to get the pants off her. Tonight, he’d followed her old VW into the desert and forced her off the road. The rest would soon be history.

“Come on, baby,” he called. “I know you’re part of the local cell of Raines’s Rebels. I’ve known for months. But I haven’t said anything about it, have I? That ought to be worth some pussy, huh? If I turn you in, Hartline’s boys will gang-bang you day and night. It’ll be our secret, Judy. Just you and me. Come on, baby?”

A dozen yards away, trembling in the rough shelter of a barranca, Judy tried to still her ragged breathing. She had been so frightened when Medlow ran her off the road she had failed to grab the only weapon she had, a tire iron.

Medlow came closer. Judy panicked and felt her feet slipping in the loose gravel. She slid down into the dry creek bed and landed on her back. Medlow was on her in an instant, tearing at her clothes. The cool desert air fanned her bare hips and belly.

His fingers found her and entered her, spreading her. Then she screamed as his hardness replaced his fingers and drove deep. Medlow began hunching, panting in her face, his breath stinking. She screamed as his hands found her breasts and squeezed brutally.

Judy’s hands clutched at the dry gravel bed until she found a baseball-sized rock. She slammed the rock against Medlow’s head, just above his right ear. He slumped on her, unconscious, blood dripping on her bare skin from his torn flesh.

She wriggled from under him and covered herself with her torn clothing. She started to run, then remembered what a Rebel sergeant had told a group of them at a secret training. She pictured the sergeant and brought back his voice.

“Strip the body of all weapons, ammunition, and money. We’re preparing to fight a guerrilla war and we have no time for niceties. Take his ID, badge, everything we might be able to use. Then make damn sure he’s dead.”

Judy stripped the body and Medlow’s car. There, she found a shotgun and several boxes of shells for his pistol and shotgun. She walked back to the federal police officer and stood over him. She cocked his service revolver, a .44 magnum, and blew half his head into a bloody mass.

All across the nation similar events were unfolding as the federal police and Hartline’s men became more savage and brutal in their handling of any suspected Rebel sympathizers.

It had been raining off and on for a week, ever since VP Lowry had met with the military; ever since that damned demonstration that had turned into a riot. Two cops were dead, a dozen civilians dead. A hundred or more civilians hospitalized, several hundred arrested. And the press was really outraged. One of their own was on the run after killing a federal cop and many press-people were blatantly ignoring the government’s censorship order.

President Aston Addison was behaving as if nothing had happened. He had called a press conference; VP Lowry had cancelled it, refusing to allow any network to carry the president’s message. But Addison had not lost his cool; had acquiesced in style, without losing his temper.

Goddamn the man! What did it take for him to show some temper.

And now this.

Lowry turned in his chair and looked at the dozen men and women from the House and Senate seated around his desk.

Ben Raines had moved east and was in command of the Rebels in the Great Smoky Mountains Park.

The son of a bitch was really alive!

The bastard!

The VP looked like a man who had just bumped into death and couldn’t quite forget the encounter and ensuing chill. When he spoke, his words were slow, carefully enunciated.

“After the states of Tennessee and North Carolina lost so many police officers, I asked Colonel Cody to handpick a battalion of men from his own people and from those units of the regular military who remain loyal to us. Every man picked was an experienced combat man. Almost 900 officers and men. Late yesterday, 83 of them came staggering out of the park area… shot to pieces, frightened out of their wits, babbling about facing thousands of Rebels…”

“They may have exaggerated the number somewhat,” Senator Stout said.

VP Lowry looked at the man. “Shut up.”

“Aston Addison is behaving as though nothing has happened. As though he is still running the country. You people put him in office, you people may now remove him.”

Representative Alice Tyler shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“Something, Mrs. Tyler?”

“The… ah… military,” she said, “especially the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Calland, told us,” she indicated the other members of Congress, “President Addison is to remain in office.”

“Did he now?”

“That is correct, Mr. Vice President,” Senator Douglas said, his voice low and rumbling, almost matching in timbre the grumbling of the thunder outside the VP’s official residence. “I personally believe the military is waiting to see which way the action moves, so to speak.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Al Cody said. “I think the military is solidly behind Raines and his people.”

“The military is neutral,” Representative Altamont spoke. “At least in their actions toward this uprising. I can’t speak, of course, for their thoughts. But the military will stay out of any fighting—for the time being.”

“You’re sure of that?” VP Lowry asked. He knew Altamont had a brother who was a general in the Air Force. “You got that from family?”

“Yes, to the first; no comment to the latter.”

“All right,” Lowry smiled, rubbing his hands together. “The military told me the same thing, but I didn’t believe them.” He turned to Cody. “You know most of the Rebels, right?”

“A good many of them.”

“Know where their families are?”

“Certainly.”

“Start putting the pressure on the families,” Lowry ordered.

“That could backfire,” Tyler said. “That could really set all the people against us. My God, Weston, we’re not some barbaric third-world country. There has to be a better way.”

“Name it,” Lowry prompted. “We’ll talk about it.”

She could not.

Lowry looked at the others: Senators Stout, Slate, Douglas, Woodland, Carlise, Reggio; Representatives Tyler, Lee, Altamont, Terry, Clifton.

One by one their eyes dropped away from his steady gaze.

Lowry glanced at Cody. “Do it,” he said.

Jerre did not accompany Ben to the Great Smokies National Park. She had stayed behind in their base camp in Wyoming. He did not know she was pregnant, and she had warned Doctor Chase if he opened his mouth about it she would personally tell everybody in camp the old doctor was secretly seeing a woman forty years his junior.

“That’s blackmail!” Chase had responded.

“Actually,” Jerre had smiled, “it’s a compliment. That a man your age can still get it up should be written about in the annals of history.”

“Don’t be crude,” he’d blustered. “Perhaps our relationship is more of the platonic type.”

“Horseshit, Doctor.”

Chase could but grin. “Jerre… I won’t let on to Ben, but I don’t understand your motives in asking me to remain silent.”

“Lamar,” she touched his arm. “I love Ben Raines more than life, and I want to bear his children; but Ben does not now and never has loved me.”

“But…”

“Oh, he likes me,” she smiled. “Perhaps a bit more than like. He loved Salina, but not completely. I don’t believe Ben had ever really, totally, loved a woman.”

“Well, he’d damn well better get hopping, then. He isn’t a spring chicken.”

She shrugged that off. “Ben has a dream, Lamar, and I’m not sure a woman has a place in that dream. So I’m bowing out. But… something else, Doctor; I think maybe you’ve noticed it, too. Some of the men and women… they seem to, well…”

“View Ben as somehow larger than life. Yes. I’ve noticed it. I hate to use the word, but there are a few, so far, at least, that appear to think of Ben as being just under a god.”

“That worries me, Lamar.”

“It should worry us all. Is Ben aware of it?”

“No,” she was quick with her reply. “I think at first he would not believe it; if he did accept it as truth, he would be appalled.”

Doctor Chase put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to the eastern base at all, Jerre?”

“No,” the word was quietly spoken. Quietly and quickly. “I think it best that Ben not have me to worry with and about, especially now that I’m pregnant.”

“Plans?”

“Northern California. Our base up near the Oregon line.”

“That’s Doctor Canale’s territory. Good man. I’ll talk with him before you leave. I hate to see you leave, kiddo.”

“Don’t get maudlin,” she grinned at him.

“Heaven forbid!”

She looked around her. “I wonder if Ben’s dream will ever come true?”

FIVE

By August of 1989, everyone who was coming into Ben’s dream society… was in. The three-state area looked like the world’s largest supply dump—and probably was. Ben had ordered his roaming units of Rebels to take everything that wasn’t nailed down—bring it with them to the three-state area. Entire towns had been stripped bare. Every ounce of gold and silver and precious gem had been carefully searched for and taken. Billions of dollars of gold, silver, and precious stones were now under guard in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. These would be used to back the new currency.

The few survivors in the three states were in almost total confusion due to lack of organization; something nearly all governments discourage. For local militia, except those under strict government control, cannot be established in the United States, not for more than a hundred years. Most governments are based on fear: fear of the IRS, fear of the FBI, fear of the Treasury Department, fear of the state police, fear of the tax collector—fear of everything. That is the only way a massive bureaucracy can function. For if the people are armed and organized, and of one mind, the people might decide that federal judges and the Supreme Court don’t have the right to dictate how taxpayers should run their lives; and those taxpayers just might decide to start hanging murderers and rapists and child molesters—those they didn’t shoot from the outset, that is.

And the people (who, so the myth goes, comprise the government and are supposed to tell government what they want, and the government is then supposed to do what the people tell them to do)… well, that would mean the people would truly be in control. Big Brother doesn’t like to think about that ever happening. Scary.

When everyone who was coming in… was in, Ike’s wife, Megan, had asked Ben, “What are you going to call your new state, Ben?”

Ben looked at her, surprised. “Mine? This is not mine. Call it Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. What else?”

“Who is the governor?” Ben was asked. “The leader—the man in charge?”

“There isn’t any,” Ben said.

“Well, then, Ben Raines… I guess we’ll just have to have us an election.”

“Just don’t nominate me,” he said. “I’m a writer, got a lot to do. I’m not a politician.”

And Ben could not understand why everyone had smiled at that.

Ben watched the bodies of the dead government agents and mercenaries being buried in a mass grave. After being stripped of all weapons and clothing, they were dumped into a huge, bulldozed-out pit, covered, and forgotten. No records were kept as to who was buried in the pit.

“I don’t think we’re going to have that year you wanted,” Ike said.

“Maybe not, but we still are not going on the offensive. The new people need more time in training; several more months. Besides, I want to see what the press does with this,” he waved a hand toward the mass grave.

Even in a police state with censorship of the press, hundreds of men and women can’t come together in a shooting war without the press playing it up. When the military failed to follow up on the battle in the Smokies, the press put it all together and the headlines screamed.

CIVIL WAR BETWEEN FEDERAL POLICE

AND RAINES’S REBELS

MILITARY WILL TAKE NO PART

Now it was settled. The breach had widened to the point of open war. Lowry had Congress ask for the help of the National Guard and Reserve troops.

Many commanders refused.

Ben and his Rebels waited and trained.

August 1, 1999

The Great Smoky Mountains

Ben Raines stood looking at the tired group of new people. All that was left of the bunch from new people from a half dozen states. They had been ambushed in transit, only a hundred and fifty had made it out alive.

Ben stood on a manmade podium in a natural outdoor amphitheater about a mile from Base Camp One.

“All right, people,” his voice jerked them to mental attention, eyes forward. Three hundred eyes studied the human legend standing before them. A shade over six feet, one hundred and eighty pounds, hair streaked with gray, blue eyes. Hard looking. “Welcome to Base Camp One. You have now reached the point of no return. From here on, there are but two ways to leave the Rebels: we win the fight, or you die. Those are your only choices.

“To my left is Colonel Ike McGowen, to my right is Colonel Cecil Jefferys. Colonel McGowen is your training officer, so get ready for the roughest time of your life. Colonel Jefferys is my XO. Now let’s get to it.

“Guerrilla warfare is a dirty business. Several of you men fought in Vietnam; you know firsthand what I’m talking about. For you inexperienced people, guerrilla warfare is this: hit hard and run like hell. For the enemy, guerrilla warfare is fear, confusion, disorganization, distrust, and terror. No great thundering land and sea-battles. No clearly defined battle lines. Guerrillas pop up anywhere, do their jobs, and get out. The enemy doesn’t know where they come from or where they’re going when they’re through.”

A hand went up from the ranks of the new people. Ben nodded his acknowledgment and said, “Name, please?”

“Steve Mailer. How much time will we have, General?”

“Hopefully, six months. It’s enough time, for you’ll be mixed with combat-experienced men and women when the full unit is formed.” Ben smiled. “I read about your… incident. You seem to be well-versed in firearms. Pistols, at least.”

“When I saw how our government was… the direction it was taking, I began giving myself lessons in firearms.” For a moment the slender young man was flung back in time…

The agents had entered his office and faced him, smiling and arrogant. “Where’s the old broad?”

Steve gritted his teeth. “Mrs. Rommey took the rest of the afternoon off. I trust that meets with your approval?”

“Watch your smart mouth, schoolteacher. Turn around, face the wall, and spread your feet.”

Steve had smiled. “Man’s rapidly dwindling individuality will someday end with an act of frightened, submissive obedience, groveling at the feet of near-cretins. I have no intention of being a party to that final fall of the curtain.”

“Huh?” one agent asked.

“It means, fuck you!” Steve said. He raised the pistol and turned. The angle of his body had prevented the agents from seeing the .38. He fired twice into each man’s chest. He fanned their bodies, taking their weapons, then ran out the rear door…

“…you all right?” Steve caught the last of Ben’s question.

“Oh. Yes, sir. I was recalling the… incident in my office.”

“First time to kill a man?” Ike asked.

“Yes, Colonel.”

“It won’t be the last,” Ike told him.

A very blond-haired lady put up a hand. Ben realized then where he’d seen the woman. In Penthouse. He’d seen quite a lot of the lady in that spread. Although he knew her name, he said, “Name, please?”

“Bellever. Dawn Bellever.” She couldn’t believe the general was as old as people said he was. Except for his gray-streaked hair, he looked… well, kind of boyish. “What’s to prevent the president from sending in the Air Force and bombing us here in the park?”

“The president is not our enemy,” Ben said. “President Addison is a good, fair man—even if he is a liberal…”

That brought a roar of laughter from not only the new people but from Ben’s seasoned Rebels.

When the laughter had died down, Dawn asked, “I don’t understand, sir. Are you saying that all the rumors we’ve been hearing; by we, I mean the press—about Vice President Lowry really being the man in power, are true?”

“That is correct, Ms. Bellever.”

Ike and Cecil looked at Ben, then at each other. In all their years of association with Ben, neither had ever heard him use Ms. toward any lady.

“Would you explain, sir?” she asked.

“Gladly,” Ben smiled.

“Oh, shit,” Ike muttered. He ignored the look he received from Ben.

“Poor Jerre,” Cecil muttered.

Ben looked at him. “What is this, a conspiracy?” he asked softly.

Both men looked straight ahead, in strict military fashion.

“We must maintain military decorum, General,” Cecil said with a straight face.

“Comedians,” Ben muttered. He turned his gaze to Dawn. Very easy to look at. “Yes, we have proof that VP Lowry was really the man behind President Logan. That should not be difficult to believe—the man was a fucking idiot.”

Again, roars of laughter from the troops.

Ben said, “After Logan’s death at the hands of one of my Zero Squad members—Badger Harbin—Lowry, with the help of selected members of both houses of Congress, wormed his way into the second spot, and the second phase of Lowry’s power play was complete. Unfortunately for the American public, we have a number of people in Congress who are interested only in looking out for themselves and the devil with the citizen. It is my intention to dispose of those so-called ‘public servants’ when the government is wrested from the hands of those now in power and restored to the people.”

“What do you mean, General?” Steve Mailer asked. “Dispose of them?”

“I intend to try them for treason and shoot them,” Ben replied.

“Jesus,” someone among the ranks of the new people muttered.

A young man stepped forward and faced Ben. The young man—no more than a year or two out of his teens—had the look of a boy born into poverty and never finding his way out of it.

“Jimmy Brady, sir. Tennessee. When do our trainin’ start?”

“It’s started right now, son.”

“No, sir—I mean the killin’ part.”

Ben smiled. “You want to explain that, Jimmy?”

Jimmy spat a brown stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “Hartline’s men come to my momma and daddy’s house once they learned I was a part of the Rebel underground. They raped my momma and dragged her off. I still don’t know whether she’s alive or dead. My little sister, Lou Ann… well, was only eleven. They raped her, too. She bled to death in the dirt where they throwed her down when they finished. They tortured my daddy and then hung him. That tell you what you want to know, General?”

“Yes, Jimmy, it does. You a good shot, Jimmy?”

“As good as any man in this camp, sir. I can knock the eye out of a squirrel at a hundred yards.”

Ben looked around and found a sergeant. “Sergeant, take this man and see what he can do with a sniper rifle.”

Questions were hurled back and forth for another hour. Ben finally called a halt to the session. “You people take it easy for the rest of the day—get something to eat. P.T. and field training begins tomorrow, at 0600. I’ll see you then.”

Ben walked back to his bunker and opened a can of field rations. He ate slowly, his thoughts many. He thought once of Jerre, and again wondered why she had refused to accompany him east. She’d been moody and irritable of late.

“Probably needs to meet someone her own age,” he muttered. He could not help but think of her as a kid, even though a decade had passed since their first meeting. “God knows, the kid hasn’t had an easy time of it.”

He lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes. He was asleep in two minutes.

“I kind of backed into this thing,” a young man was saying. A small group of the new arrivals were sitting in the shade, talking.

“How do you back into being branded a traitor?” he was asked.

“Chain of events,” the young man grinned. “I was going to school at the University of Virginia. This would have been my senior year. Pre-med. I was walking down the street one Saturday afternoon with some friends; we were all laughing and joking. But not disturbingly so; not vulgar or even boisterous. I bumped into this federal cop. That’s all—I swear it. Just bumped into him. He grabbed me and tossed me against the building. Scared the hell out of me. Called me a punk… called me all sorts of names. I just couldn’t believe it. That’s when it all came rushing to me. A police state. This is really a police state.

“I looked at the cop and I said, ‘Hey, man—just fuck you!’ He hit me and I hit him back; I mean, I really knocked the snot out of him. Knocked him flat on his butt. Other cops came and arrested me. They… uh… well, they worked on me some in my cell. Stripped me and… it got pretty embarrassing and perverted, if you know what I mean.

“Well, that damned judge gave me five years for hitting that cop. Five years. I got a chance to make a break for it and took it. Hid out for several weeks until a group of young people found me and took me to Memphis. You all know the rest.”

The Rebels were a strange cross-section of Americana. College students and professors, lawyers, clerks, doctors, truck drivers, pipeliners, engineers, artists, musicians, writers—a hundred other professions that made up not just the field units of the Rebels, but people whose jobs were to stockpile and cache food, clothing, weapons, ammo, bandages, boots, socks, jackets, tents, blankets, sleeping bags, fuel, lanterns, rope and wire, tools, and the hundreds of other items essential for guerrilla warfare.

And they were becoming more skilled in hiding their true occupations from the always-seeking eye of Big Brother; from Hartline’s mercenaries, and from Cody’s agents.

It was infuriating to VP Lowry.

“I told you to lean on the families of those suspected Rebel sympathizers,” Lowry said, his face ugly and mottled with rage.

“And just as Alice Tyler predicted, it backfired,” Cody replied. “It just made the people turn against the government that much quicker. I stopped it.”

“I also told you to put a lid on the press.”

Cody’s chuckle was totally void of mirth.

Hartline sat in the VP’s office. So far he had said nothing.

Cody said, “This is America, Weston—not South America. We’ve had a free press in this country for several centuries; that isn’t something that can be squelched overnight. I…”

“I can censor the press,” Hartline said quietly. “You just give me the green light—and a written promise you’ll back me up—and watch me go to work. I’ll muzzle them so goddamned fast they won’t know what hit them.”

“How?” Lowry asked.

“Same way we did in… ah… certain countries in South America and Africa back in the mid-eighties.”

“Can you guarantee your plan will work?” the VP was interested, leaning forward, eyes shining. “Will there be torture?” A tiny dribble of spit oozed from one corner of his mouth.

Cody did not notice the flow, but Hartline did, and thought: a lot of repressed emotions in the VP. A lot of dark, covered emotions. “Yes,” Hartline smiled. “I surely can.”

“Do it,” Lowry ordered. “And start here in Richmond. Film it, too. I wanna see it.”

While you beat your meat, Hartline thought. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

SIX

The warm days of late summer passed quickly for the Rebels in the Great Smoky Mountains. They were up with the sun and trained until dusk. They were all nut-brown from the sun and lean and hard from the training. Long, lung-straining uphill runs were twice a day; push-ups, sit-ups, duck-walking uphill until one’s legs felt muscle would surely rip from bone. Brutal demanding physical training was a fact and a part of everyday life. They learned rappelling, demolitions, how to make homemade bombs from chemicals found in any farmer’s supply outlet.

They were taught disguise techniques, running the gamut from street beggar to businessman to apple Annie. Reflexes were honed down to a razor-sharp edge.

In close combat training, Ike circumvented the unnecessary and went straight to the killing blows. A few of the new people were hurt during this, one was killed, but the training never stopped.

The mountains exploded with the sounds of grenades and mortar and automatic weapons fire. In rifle training, both Ben and Ike were adamant on one point.

“You’ve all got to become expert shots. In many instances, the enemy will be wearing flak vests, body armor; so you’ve got to learn to hit the leg, the arm, or the head. The leg or arm is good in one sense. Knock a leg out from under a man and he’ll lie on the field and scream. That’s demoralizing to his buddies and pretty soon someone will come to his aid. Then you can kill them.”

Hartline and his men, backed by FBI agents with warrants charging several newspeople with treason for refusing to cooperate with the congressional mandate to submit all copy before airing, entered the Richmond offices of NBC. This was to be the test network.

Hartline, carrying an M-10 SMG, shoved the elderly guard away from the doors, knocking the man sprawling, and marched into the executive offices. He jerked one startled VP of programming to his feet and hit him in the mouth with a leather-gloved right fist. The man slammed against a chair and fell stunned to the carpet.

“Here, now!” a news commentator ran into the room. “You can’t do that.”

One of Hartline’s men butt-stroked the newsman with the butt of his AK-47. The man’s jaw popped like a firecracker. He was unconscious before he hit the carpet, blood pouring from the sudden gaps in his teeth.

“Where is the bureau chief?” Hartline said. “Or whatever you people call the boss. Get him in here, pronto.”

A badly shaken young secretary stammered, “It isn’t a him—it’s a her. Ms. Olivier.”

“Well now,” Hartline smiled. “That’s even better. Get her for me, will you, darling?”

Before the secretary could turn, a voice, calm and controlled, spoke from the hall. “What is the meaning of this?”

Hartline lifted his eyes, meeting the furious gaze of Sabra Olivier. He let his eyes drift over her, from eyes to ankles and back again. “You kind of a young cunt to be in charge of all this, aren’t you, honey?” he asked.

“Get out!” Sabra ordered.

The words had just left her mouth when Hartline’s hand popped against her jaw, staggering her. She stumbled against the open door, grabbing the doorknob for support.

“Dear,” Hartline said, "you do not order me about. I will tell you what I want, then you see to it that my orders are carried out. Is that clear?”

“You’re Sam Hartline,” Sabra said, straightening up, meeting him nose to nose, no back-up in her. “Vice President Lowry’s pet dog.”

Hartline never lost his cold smile. He faced the woman, again taking in her physical charms. Black hair, carefully streaked with gray; dark olive complexion, black eyes, now shimmering with anger; nice figure, long legs.

Sabra turned to a man. “Call the police,” she told him.

Hartline laughed at her. “Honey, we are the police.”

Sabra paled slightly.

The man on the floor groaned, trying to sit up, one hand holding his broken and swelling jaw.

Hartline said, “Get that pussy out of here. Toss him in the lobby and have that old goat call an ambulance to get him.” He looked at Ms. Olivier. “We can do this easy or hard, lady. It’s all up to you.”

“What do you want?” she said.

“For you to cooperate with your government, stop taking the Rebels’ side in this insurrection. And to submit all copy for government approval before airing.”

“No way,” Sabra said, and Hartline knew he was dealing with a lady that wasn’t going to back up or down. Yet. “Then you want it hard,” he said, the double-meaning not lost on her, as he knew it would not be.

Her dark eyes murdered the mercenary a dozen times in a split second. Her smile was as cold as his. “I never heard of anyone dying from it, Hartline.”

“Oh, I have, Sabra-baby. I have.”

The students at the University of Virginia, after hearing of the government takeover of the NBC offices and studios in Richmond, marched in protest at this blatant violation of the First Amendment. But this was not the 1960s; the newly federalized police had no restrictions on them as the police in the ‘60s had.

They were met with snarling dogs and batons and live ammunition. The Dobermans and shepherds literally tore one marcher to bloody rags; three others died from slugs fired from M-16s; another died from severe head wounds from a beating. Dozens were arrested in the process, beaten bloody.

VP Lowry ordered classes suspended at the university and the doors closed and locked. Only hours after the takeover at NBC, the faculty and many students refused to leave the building, barricading themselves in the dorms and classrooms. They were driven out by tear gas, and maced as they ran almost blindly from the buildings into the street. There, they were manhandled and bodily thrown into vans to be transported to local police stations.

Many people do not realize just how precious the Bill of Rights is… until they no longer have it.

“All right,” Sabra Olivier said to Hartline. “Stop it—stop your men. I’ll cooperate.”

The moaning and screaming of her female employees had finally broken her spirit. As Hartline knew it would. And he had not touched Ms. Olivier. Yet.

Hartline nodded to a man standing by the door to the office. Within seconds, the screaming and moaning had ceased.

“You see,” Hartline smiled at her. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

If looks could kill.

Sabra watched, a curious look in her eyes as a Minicam was brought into her office, carried by an agent. She did not understand the smile on Hartline’s lips.

The mercenary pointed to a TV set located just behind her desk. “Turn that one on.”

She did as instructed. A naked man appeared on the screen. She recognized him as one of her anchormen and also knew this was live. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I said I’d cooperate.”

“This is just a little insurance, Sabra-darling,” Hartline replied. He picked up a phone on her desk and punched a button. “Do it,” he ordered. He looked at Sabra. “Watch, darling.”

She swung reluctant eyes toward the screen. A cattle prod touched the naked newsman on the thigh. His scream chilled her. He rolled on the floor as the prod touched his buttocks and his feet. His screaming was hideous.

“Stop it!” Sabra shouted.

The prod touched the man’s genitals. He ground his teeth together with such force several broke off.

“Goddamn you, Hartline!” Sabra rose from her chair. “Stop it!”

“You’ll cooperate with us?” he questioned.

“I said I would!”

“Anything I say?”

"Yes!"

“I have your son ready to perform for us. Would you like to see that?”

“Goddamn you!”

Hartline laughed. To the operator of the camera, “Start rolling it.” He unzipped his pants. “Come here, Sabra-baby. This one is for VP Lowry. And if you ever fail to obey an order; if you ever let any copy air without government approval… this tape gets shown—in its entirety—on the six o’clock news.”

“You goddamn lowlife miserable son of a bitch!” she cursed him.

Hartline smiled. “Strip, baby. Take it all off while facing the camera. Let’s give Lowry a really good show.”

Naked and embarrassed and trembling with anger, Sabra faced the mercenary.

He netted his penis. “Kneel down here, baby—on your knees. You know what to do. You probably sucked cocks gettin’ to where you are in the network, anyway.”

She took him as the camera recorded it all.

Hartline laughed. “It’s just so fucking easy when you know how. Just so easy.”

“I wonder how many of us really took this thing seriously?” Dawn said, almost as if speaking to herself. “I mean, before it actually touched us?”

Sunday afternoon in the Great Smokies, a time for rest and napping and talking.

“What a strange thing to say,” a young woman from Baker Company said. “Didn’t you always?”

“No,” Dawn replied. “Hell, I was a member of the press—practically untouchable. None of us ever really took the censorship order seriously. But when I shot that cop in Richmond, my only thought was to get away. I had absolutely no idea of joining anything. It all had kind of a dreamlike quality to it until I saw and heard all those people beaten to death in Memphis.”

Dawn was one of the few who made it out of the safe house in Memphis. She had never talked about it.

“How bad was it?” one of Ben’s regular Rebels from the days of Tri-States asked.

It was quiet, very peaceful in the mountains. A light breeze rippled the leaves as summer, sensing the change, began its slow drifting into fall. Nature’s coloration was beginning its gradual change; a little gold had appeared among the green. When Dawn spoke, her voice was low-pitched, as if the memory itself was painful.

“I can remember a panel truck or van in Richmond,” she recalled vocally. “And I remember that my head hurt and I was bleeding and my hand and wrist were sore from firing that hand-cannon. I don’t remember much about the trip from Richmond to Memphis. I do recall someone saying Memphis was safe because it was a dead city. We stopped several times and there was always someone to change the bandage on my head.

“We made it to Memphis without any trouble. Any of you ever seen that city? God! Dead doesn’t do it justice. It’s eerie. Anyway, we were all kept in this huge mansion there; our testing period. We were drugged and hooked up to polygraph and PSE machines. We all passed the tests except for this one girl; she was a federal agent working undercover.”

Dawn paused in the act of remembrance. “What happened to her?” someone asked.

Dawn shrugged. “I guess someone killed her.”

They all waited for her to continue; waited in the stillness of waning summer.

“We had all passed our tests and were waiting to link up with another group before being sent here. Three of us were way in the back of the house—this was another house, not the mansion. We moved several times. We were playing cards. Gin rummy.

“We never dreamed there would be a contingent of Hartline’s men and agents in the city. But then we didn’t know they had broken some of the people they’d captured in Tennessee. About nine o’clock that night they kicked in the front door and started hammering on people. Just like that—no warning, no nothing. It was… unreal. The guy who was playing cards with us pushed me and this other girl into a closet and up into the crawlspace of the attic. Then he dropped back down to search for a weapon. The two of us lay there, listening and shaking we both were so badly frightened.”

One Rebel paused in the lighting of a cigarette; another looked at the ground. No one said anything. All waited.

“The agents had knowledge that only a few of us would be armed. They killed them first, then started beating the men to death with nightsticks. They had other plans for the women,” she said grimly. “One girl kept screaming: ‘Help me—help me. God, it hurts!’ Over and over. I don’t have to tell you what the men were doing to her. It was a pretty grim scene.

“They… tortured some of the women right in the room under us. I kept thinking: this is not happening. This is America. This can’t be happening. Bullshit. It was happening, all right.

“And they were taking pictures of it, still shots and rolling action. Some of the men were laughing and saying how much fun it was going to be to compare this to some of the other films other guys had taken. Jesus Christ. Did the Nazis do things like that? I’m sure they did.

“All we could do was lie as still as possible and pray—if there is a God,” she added bitterly. “And I don’t know anymore.

“It seemed like it went on for hours. Hell, it did go on for hours! Then we heard the men leave. We waited for an hour before we slipped down into the… carnage. It was unbelievable—what had been done to the people. It was something you’d see in some sort of… sex perversion movie. Really. I’m not going to get into that. But these guys—Hartline’s men and some of these agents—they must be crazy; all twisted inside. I don’t know.” She shook her head.

“The next day, some trucks came to get us. We all took different routes getting here. I was in the small convoy that wasn’t ambushed. I don’t know if I could have taken that; I was pretty shaky. We got here that night.”

She lapsed into a silence that was loud. Just when it seemed she would not speak of the horror again, she added, “That’s when I got involved. That’s when I got involved.”

No one had anything to add to that.

SEVEN

“This is it?” President Addison asked, looking around him at the handful of men and women gathered at the presidential retreat. “This is all?”

“I’m afraid so, Aston,” Senator Carson said glumly. “All that I know for certain we can trust, that is.”

Fourteen men and five women making up the group of twelve representatives and seven senators.

“It’s worse than I thought,” the president said, his voice no more than a shocked whisper. “I was sure Matt would be among the group.”

“They got to Matt,” Representative Jean Purcell said.

“They?” Aston questioned.

“Cody and Hartline,” Senator Stayton said. “We didn’t learn of this until just a week or so ago, Aston. We just could not understand how responsible men and women could change overnight. Oh, we knew many of our colleagues were the wrong people for the job, but their people elected them… nothing we could do about that. But we thought we had enough votes to keep you in power. Then we started polling. Quite a surprise.”

“Yes,” Representative Linda Benning spoke. “More like a shock to us. Then we found out why. To make it brief, Mr. President, Matt was set up… a young girl, a very young girl. Naturally, it was Hartline and Cody. Everything was filmed.”

“How old was the girl?” Aston asked.

Linda cleared her throat. “Ah… eleven.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“A very mature eleven,” she added.

“The others?” Aston asked.

“More or less the same tactics; some got rougher than others. Senator Borne’s wife was raped right in front of him—in their living room!” Senator Milton said. He wiped sweat from his forehead with a large handkerchief and said, “His daughters would have been next had he not agreed to go along with Lowry.” The man sighed. “This is movie stuff, right out of Hollywood. Or, when Hollywood existed, that is. It just doesn’t happen in real life. That’s what we all thought. Larry Barwell came to me last week, after I confronted him outside the chambers and called him a traitor. He came to my house, crying. They…”

“Goddamnit!” Aston snapped at the man. “Stop using they. Who the hell is they?"

Anguish shone in Milton’s eyes. “Cody’s men. Hartline’s men. Lowry’s agents. God, Aston, we’re trying.”

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Aston patted the man’s arm. “I really am. I didn’t mean to snap. Go on.”

“They… those men—they threatened to, this is embarrassing… sexually abuse Larry if he didn’t cooperate. You know what I mean, Aston.”

The president sat down in a chair, his face was almost gray. “I get the picture. How did you people withstand the pressure?”

“I guess Lowry’s men just didn’t need us. They had enough votes to do things their way without us,” Representative Essex replied. “I’m glad they didn’t get to us. I’ll be honest with you, Aston: I don’t know what I would have done.”

Aston shook his head. “I can’t blame any of the men and women for doing what they did—under that kind of pressure. Well, at least you all have cleared up some matters this afternoon.”

“Aston,” Senator Poulson leaned forward. “Let’s take it to the military, lay it on the line for them. Ask them to move in and forcibly toss Lowry and his people out.”

Aston shook his head. “I thought of that. I even called in the Joint Chiefs and approached them with it. They laid it out for me. And the figures were disturbing. You all know how small our military is. Combining all the services, Cody’s FBI, Hartline’s mercenaries, and, all the federalized cops more than triple the size of the military. And that’s not even counting the National Guard and reserve units, plus the regular units of the military who would be loyal to Lowry or Cody. No, I think we have only one hope.”

“And that is,” Senator Henson asked.

“Ben Raines,” the president reluctantly replied.

“Ben,” Ike walked up to him, smiling. “I think we got a break in this.”

“It’s about time. Put it on me, pal.”

Both men winced at Ben’s use of the noun. Ike sighed. “Yeah, Ben—he was a friend of mine, too.”

Ben and Juno were in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. Ben had relaxed by fishing in the late afternoon sun, catching more fish than he could possibly use, but having so much fun he was hesitant to quit. He had cleaned them and was about to cook them on his portable Coleman stove when Juno growled low in his chest.

“We’re friendly.” The voice came out of the brush. “I have some children with me.”

“Come on in,” Ben said, keeping one hand on the butt of his pistol.

A black man and woman with several kids in tow walked up to the cabin porch. The man stuck out his hand. “Pal Elliot.” He smiled his introduction. “This is Valerie. And these,” he pointed to the kids, “in order, starting with the oldest, are Bruce, Linda, Sue, and Paul.”

Two blacks, one Oriental, one Indian.

Ben shook the offered hands and smiled at the kids. “Ben Raines.” He sat down on the porch and motioned for the others to do the same. “You folks live around here?”

Pal smiled. “No, just passing through. Like a lot of other people. I was an airline pilot, based in L.A. Valerie was a model in New York City. We met about seven months ago, I think it was.”

“Six months ago,” she corrected him with a smile. “We picked up the kids along the way. Found them wandering.”

“No children of your own?” Ben asked.

“No. But he did.” She looked at Pal. “Lost his whole family. You?”

Ben shook his head. “I was—am—a bachelor. Lost my brothers and sisters and parents.” He grimaced in the fading light.

“Memories still painful?” Pal asked.

“No, not really. One brother made it out—up in Chicago. Suburbs, actually. We met… had a falling out.”

“Carl Raines?” Pal asked.

“That’s the man.”

“We passed through that area,” Valerie said. “Very quickly. It was… unpleasant.”

“Well, folks,” Ben stood up, rubbing his hands together. “How about staying for dinner? I have plenty of fish.”

“We’d like that,” they said together.

“I knew I’d heard that name somewhere,” Pal said. It was evening in the mountains. The air was soft with warmth, the lake shimmering in the moonlight, shining silver with ripples of moving chalk on the surface. The children played Rook in the den of the cabin; the adults sat on the porch, smoking and talking and drinking beer. “’Way you write, hard law and order, I had to think you were a racist—at first. Then you did some other books that had me confused about your reasoning. What is your political philosophy, Ben? If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“No, I don’t mind. I… think I was rapidly becoming very apolitical, Pal; pretty damned fed up with the whole system. I did a couple of books about it. I was fed up with the goddamned unions asking for more money than they were worth—trying, in many instances, to dictate policy to the government. I was very sick of crime with no punishment, weary of the ACLU sticking their noses into everybody’s business. Oh… don’t get me started, Pal. Besides, as a young lady once told me, not too long ago, it’s all moot now, anyway.”

“Is it, Ben?” Pal asked. “What about Logan?”

Ben chuckled. “Our president-we-didn’t-elect? Yeah, I know. I gather you folks aren’t responding to his orders to relocate?”

“Logan can take his relocation orders and stick them up his nose,” Valerie said. “I never did like that man; didn’t trust him.”

Megan’s words.

“I shall live,” she continued, “where I damned well choose to live.”

Ben told them of Ike and Megan; of New Africa and what the government planned to do. And then he told them, just touching on it, of the idea that was in his mind—to get their reactions.

They were both excited. “Are you serious with this, Ben?” Pal inquired, leaning forward.

“Yes, I suppose I am. I know I am. I’ve been resisting it for months. I didn’t believe Americans would follow Logan’s orders, falling blindly in line like lemmings to the sea. You two have witnessed it?”

Pal nodded. “Yes. Several times during the past few months. People are being forced to relocate, many of them against their will.”

“You were going to tour the country, write about it?” Valerie asked.

“Was,” Ben said. “You people?”

“The kids have to have schooling,” Pal replied, giving voice to both their thoughts. “And I’m told a man named Cecil Jefferys and his wife, Lila, are really doing some fantastic things down in Louisiana.”

“I just told you what Logan plans to do about New Africa,” Ben reminded them.

“Maybe it won’t happen.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“No,” Pal said quietly. “I suppose not. White people have always been fearful of an all-black nation, whether you will admit it or not. But I suppose we have to try. I have a master’s in science; Valerie, a master’s in business. They are going to need teachers.”

“But I just told you—”

“I know—I know,” Pal waved him silent. “But after all that’s happened… all the horror, I thought perhaps the government would… let us alone, let us rebuild.”

“You know they won’t.”

Pal and Valerie said nothing in rebuttal.

After talking of small things for a few moments, Ben said, “I’d like to see a nation—a state, if you will—where we teach truth, as supported by fact; the arts, the sciences, English, other languages, fine music—the whole bag. I have this theory—very controversial—that we are, should have to start from scratch. Gather up a group of people who are colorblind and as free of hates and prejudices as possible, and say, ‘All right, folks, here it is; we, all of us, are going to wash everything clean and begin anew. Here will be our laws, as we choose them. We will live by these laws, and they will be enforced to the letter… equally. Always. This is what we will teach in our schools—and only this. This is what will happen when a student gets out of line. Everything will be in plain simple English, easy to understand and, I would hope, easy to follow.’ The speech would have to end with this: ‘Those of you who feel you can live in a society such as we advocate, please stay. Work with us in eradicating prejudices, hatred, hunger, bad housing, bad laws, crime, etc. But those of you who don’t feel you could live under such a system of open fairness—then get the hell out!’”

Both Pal and Valerie were silent for a few seconds after Ben finished. Pal finally said, “That, my friend, would be some society, if it would work.”

“It would work,” Ben defended his theory. “If the government—the central government—would leave the people alone. It would work because everyone there would be working toward that goal. There would be no dissension.”

“Don’t you feel that concept rather idealistic?” Valerie asked.

“No, Valerie, I don’t. But I will say it would take a lot of bending and adjusting for the people who choose to live in that type of society.”

“Ben Raines?” Pal looked at him. “Let’s keep in touch.”

As he drove away the next morning, Ben thought: Now there are the types of people I’d like to have for neighbors, friends. Good people, educated people, knowledgeable people, with dreams and hopes and an eye toward the future…

“Yeah,” Ben said, bringing himself back to the present. “But we can’t live in the past, can we, Ike?”

“It doesn’t hurt to remember, though. As long as someone is around to remember the dead, they’ll always be alive.” He grinned. “Some wise dude said that.”

“You had some good news for me…”

“Tommy Levant, senior agent with the FBI. He’s fed up with Cody and what the man has done with the Bureau. Word is, he wants to work with us.”

“Trap?”

“I don’t think so, Ben. Levant is one of the old breed of agent: straight and narrow. The Hoover type of Bureau man. One of the few older hands left.”

“I wonder if he realizes the risk involved?”

Ike shrugged. “His ass.”

“That’s what I like about you, Ike,” Ben laughed. “You…”

Ben’s remark fell unfinished as Dawn walked past them. Ike watched his friend’s eyes follow the movement of her hips and the sway of her breasts. He grinned as Ben shook his head.

“Prime stuff there, El Presidente. You wanna tell me what happened ‘tween you and Jerre?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Ike: I just don’t know. It’s been… cooling between us for several months. I think she’d like somebody closer to her own age.”

“Umm,” Ike said.

“Does that mean yes or no?”

“Means: Umm,” Ike replied. “Ben… do we have a chance in this thing? You think we have a chance of pulling this off?”

Ben sighed. “A slim one.” He knew Ike, despite his intentional butchering of the English, had a mind that closed like a trap around information he felt was necessary to retain. “Of the 7,200 new people, how many can we field as fighting personnel?”

“Six thousand,” the ex-Navy SEAL replied without hesitation. “That gives us just a tad over ten thousand personnel to field as fighters.” Ike looked closely at Ben. The man seemed deep in thought. “What’s on your mind, Ben?”

“We do it one town at a time,” Ben said softly. “So easy it escaped me for a time.”

“What is so easy?”

“Giving the nation back to the people. We do it one town at a time.” He grabbed Ike’s arm. “Get on the horn to our field commanders. Tell them to start hitting deserted bases and stripping them of weapons. When they’ve done that, have them begin hitting National Guard and reserve armories; I want every weapon they can get in their hands. Call our intelligence people and get them working; find out where the government is storing the weapons it takes from civilians. Then hit it.”

Ike’s eyes lit up with comprehension. “We arm the people—one town at a time.”

“Yes, and we start with the towns around the Great Smokies.”

Both men turned to watch a black girl walk across the camp area. She was small, petite would be the word, and if one wished to be chauvinistic in describing a lady, stacked.

“Steady, Ike,” Ben grinned. “Remember, you’re a Mississippi boy.”

“I bet my ol’ granddaddy is jist a-spinnin’ in his grave,” Ike said. “Lord have mercy, would you look at that action at the fantail.”

“Ike—you’re impossible!” Ben laughed. “What’s her name?”

“Carla Fisher. Great balls of fire.”

Over his chuckling, Ben asked, “What’s her story?”

“I don’t know; but I shore intend to find out.”

Carla found herself in a South Carolina jail, charged with the murder of a man she’d never seen, nor heard of. The police used a dozen different methods to break her story, but they could not, and Carla held on.

She was degraded, cursed, browbeaten, and humiliated. She was also treated to the standard search procedure used for suspected female narcotics users and pushers—at least that is what it started out at its inception. In many big city jails, all females are subjected to this search. One of the more Dachau-type tactics many police departments utilize.

Stripped naked and either showered or hosed down—dependent entirely upon the department and the time of day or night—one is forcibly held down and then bent over by police matrons—if they are handy—and then the female is searched in every conceivable place a woman might elect to hide a small packet of drugs. It is anything but pleasant, and if the matrons happen to have a sadistic streak, it can not only be cruel, but painful—not to mention extremely humiliating.

If this tactic is thought to be helpful, in any way, toward breaking a prisoner’s story, it will be used. Narcotics sometimes has nothing to do with it. It is but a legal variation of Hartline’s tactics.

Carla spent weeks in jail. No bail. Her trial was long and staggeringly expensive. Her mother and father borrowed and mortgaged to pay for the best legal defense they could get. Carla was found not guilty—after the police found the real murderer. She was cleared of all but the stigma.

And the press can be as culpable as the police in the failure to remove that.

Ten days after Carla was released from jail, with a rather lame “Gee, we sure are sorry,” from the DA and the judge, Carla’s father lost his job.

Unable to pay his debts, unable to mortgage anything else, his creditors turned everything over to the collection agencies and they came slobbering and threatening into Mr. and Mrs. Fisher’s lives.

Then the vicious circle began to revolve.

Mr. Fisher could not get a job because of the bad reports the local credit bureau gave to any prospective employer; he could not pay his bills because he had no job; he could not borrow the money to pay his bills because he had no job with which to repay the borrowed money… if he could have borrowed any.

Nasty letters from the collection bureaus; abusive phone calls from the collection bureaus; threats at all hours of the day and night—over and over.

Five months after their daughter was freed from a charge that should never have been hung on her, with the only utility still operating being the gas, they elected to use that. They locked themselves in the kitchen and turned on the stove and went to sleep.

They never woke up.

A day after she buried her parents, Carla took her father’s shotgun, waited in the DA’s garage until he came home from work, and shot him four times in the chest and once in the face.

Then she joined the Rebels.

None of that could have happened in Ben Raines’s Tri-States.

There were many things different, unique, and quite experimental about Tri-States. One visiting reporter called it right-wing socialism, and to a degree, he was correct. But yet, as another reporter put it, “It is a state for all the people who wish to live here, and who have the ability to live together.”

In the Tri-States, if a family fell behind in their bills, they could go to a state-operated counseling service for help. The people there were friendly, courteous, and openly and honestly sympathetic, if that family could not pay their bills because of some unforeseen emergency, and if that family was making a genuine effort to pay their bills, utilities could not be disconnected, automobiles could not be taken from them, furniture could not be repossessed. A system of payment would be worked out. There were no collection agencies in the Tri-States.

As Ben once told a group of visiting tourists, “It is the duty and the moral and legal obligation of the government—in this case—state government, to be of service and of help to its citizens. When a citizen calls for help, that person wants and needs help instantly, not in a month or in three months. And in the Tri-States, that is when it is provided—instantly. Without citizens, the state cannot exist. The state is not here to harass, or to allow harassment, in any form. And it will not be tolerated.”

Within a week’s time, all towns within a fifty-mile radius of the shadows of the Great Smokies were shut down tight. Every person over the age of eighteen—if they so desired, and most did—were armed. With those weapons, the people were making their first real start in a hundred years in establishing some control over their lives.

A Tennessee federal highway patrolman almost messed in his underwear shorts when he drove through a small town and all the adults were armed—and not just with squirrel rifles, either. Many had M-14s, M-15s, and M-16s. A few carried old BARS, Grease Guns, Thompson, and M-11s and 10s.

“Hey!” he shouted at one young woman. She was pushing a baby stroller and had a .30-caliber carbine over one shoulder. “What the hell is going on around here?”

“You want something, trooper?” she replied.

“Ah… yeah. Where are the… I mean… what happened to Chief Bennett and his men? The police station is empty.”

“They all quit.”

“Quit!” The trooper was uncomfortably aware of a crowd of people gathering around his patrol car. They were all armed. Well armed. “Possession of any type of automatic weapon is illegal,” he spoke from rote. “The possession of any shotgun larger than a 20-gauge is also against the law. No one may own a hunting rifle in a caliber larger than a .22. If you people…”

“Shut up,” he was told.

He shut up.

“Times have changed,” a man spoke. “If you don’t believe it, just move your head a bit to the left.”

The trooper turned his head, slowly, and found himself looking down the bore of a 9-mm SMG. “I believe, I believe,” he said. “Man… Mister, put that thing on safety. Please?”

The 9-mm was lowered.

“Burt,” a woman said, “you’ve been a decent sort of trooper. I don’t think you ever liked all this high-handed business coming out of Richmond. Did you, Burt?”

Burt knew if he uttered the wrong answer someone would soon be picking him up with a shovel and a spoon. He told the truth. “No, ma’am—I haven’t liked it.”

“I reckon the government will be sending in federal lawmen to take our guns, don’t you, Burt?”

“I reckon that is the truth.”

“They are not going to make it this time, Burt.”

“I kinda figured that, too, Miss Ida,” Burt said. “I sure did.”

“We wouldn’t want to see you among that crowd of feds, Burt.”

“Miss Ida, you ain’t gonna see me in that crowd. Now you can just bet on that.”

“Burt,” a man said, “you tell your commanding officer that the people in the towns around the mountains are law-abiding folks. We’re not vigilantes and no one has been hanged by mob law and no one is going to be. But anyone who tries to come in here and take our guns will be met with gunfire. You tell your commanding officer that, Burt, now, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You go on, now, Burt. And, Burt…”

The trooper looked at the man.

“…you’re welcome back here in Sevierville just anytime at all. If we have law problems with anyone, we’ll be callin’ for you to come in and handle it.”

“Yes, sir. I’d be right proud to do that for y’all. Just anytime at all. You call HQ—I’ll sure roll on it.”

“Bye, Burt.”

Trooper Burt put his patrol car in gear and rolled out of Sevierville. Smartly, as the British would say.

Sabra Olivier sat in her office and watched the six o’clock news; watched it with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The censored report was bland stuff, stories that would not have made it prior to Hartline’s… visit.

She shuddered at the memory—or memories, she corrected herself.

For Hartline had been back several times, to, as he put it, “Get him another taste of successful pussy.”

Sabra felt like throwing up on the floor.

She got up and paced the floor.

The news was so innocuous she changed channels; but that move produced nothing better. Hartline and his men had been to all network offices. She looked at the anchorwoman on ABC and wondered if Hartline had forced his way with her, too. Sabra concluded the mercenary probably had. But, she smiled cattily, with that one’s reputation, Hartline probably hadn’t had to do much forcing.

She sat down in her chair and propped both elbows on her desk, chin in her hands. How did we get to this point? she pondered. Good Lord, were we all so blind to the truth we failed to see Logan was just a front for Lowry?

I guess so, she sighed.

We were so busy protecting our own precious right to report the news—as we saw it, with our own little twists and subtle innuendoes—we failed to notice what was really happening around us; failed to pick up on the real mood of the people.

The majority, she admitted.

The taxpayers, she once more sighed.

“Guardians of freedom,” she muttered. “But whose freedom? Ours, or the people?”

She sat up straight in the chair as an idea came to her.

A dangerous idea, for sure, but one way—if she could pull it off—to nail Hartline’s cock to the wall. With him attached. Hanging about a foot from the floor.

She savored that mental sight for a few moments, then reached for the phone. She pulled her hand back. Surely Hartline would have it all bugged. Well, she’d just have to be sure of what she said.

“Get me Roanna,” she told her secretary.

She intercepted the reporter outside her office and took her by the arm, leading her to the restroom. As she had seen in countless movies and TV shows, Sabra turned on the water in the sink to cover any noise.

“You know all about Hartline,” she said. “I’ve never pulled any punches with any of you. But what do you really think of him?”

“I’d like to cut the bastard’s cock off and stuff it down his throat,” the reporter said without a second’s hesitation.

Sabra was mildly shocked. She had never heard Roanna be so crude. “He got to you?”

The brunette’s smile was grim. “Oh, yes—from behind. Said he didn’t like the stories I’d done on mercenaries; wanted to give me something I’d remember.” She grimaced. “I remember all right. I walked funny for three days.”

“How many other women?”

“Sabra, it’s not just the women; some of his men are twisted all out of shape. I don’t know what you’re planning, but be careful, you’re dealing with a maniac in Hartline. He’s a master at torture. He’s got most of the people in the networks frightened out of their wits, men and women. All of us wondering how it got this far out of hand so quickly.”

“I was wondering the same thing just a few minutes ago,” Sabra admitted. “Look, I’ve got to get someone in Ben Raines’s camp, and I’ve got you in mind. I think I can convince Hartline it’s for the best. You do a story on Raines, I’ll put together one on Hartline. I’ll make him look like the coming of Christ. We’ll do little three-minute segments each week, but they’ll be coded with messages for Raines.”

“Sabra…”

“No! It’s something I believe we’ve got to do. I’ll accept some responsibility for what’s happening—what has happened to this nation; it’s partly our fault. Hartline… visits me twice a week. Lately I’ve been accepting his visits as something I have no control over. He thinks I’m enjoying them. He’s an egomaniac; I can play on that. Really build him up. It’s amazing what a man will say when he’s in bed with a woman. We’ll work out some sort of code to let Raines know what is happening, or what is about to happen. Are you game?”

“You know what will happen to both of us if Hartline discovers what we’re doing?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Roanna said. “Let’s do it.”

The lights of the small airstrip winked at the Kansas ag-pilot. Married less than a year, Jim Slater was anxious to get back to earth and to his wife. Suddenly, a Piper Club came up fast on his right, flying without lights, startling him. His ‘phones crackled a message that chilled him, turning his guts to ice.

“Watch yourself, Jim. FBI agents on the ground waiting for you. Someone spilled the beans about your running guns for the Rebels. They busted into your house and took Jeanne about noon. They raped her, man. She tried to run away and they shot her. She’s dead. I’m sorry, Jim.”

The Cub was gone into the night before Jim could acknowledge the message.

Jim circled the small strip before landing. When his wheels touched down, he quickly taxied to the far end of the strip, cut his engine, and jumped out, running into a hangar, slipping through the darkness. He ran to his locker and fumbled inside until he found the hidden panel. Far down the field he could see the bobbing lights of flashlights moving toward him, behind the lights, running figures in the still-warm night.

Cursing under his breath at his clumsiness, and angry because of his tears, Jim hurriedly pulled out a Browning Buck Gun and began shoving magnum loads into the 12 gauge. He slung an ammo belt around his waist and moved to the open window, staying low. Chambering one shell, he fed another into the magazine and waited. The agents stopped some twenty-five feet from the hangar and began talking. Jim listened to the conversations before taking any action. He wanted to be sure he was killing the right men.

“The son of a bitch is gone, I tell you. I watched him run over there, into that field.”

“Too bad about that wife of his.”

“Yeah, I could have stood some more of that pussy. Man, that was tight.”

Jim emptied the Buck Special into the dark shapes, watching one man’s head fly apart as the slugs ripped and tore their explosive path. He reloaded and emptied the Buck Gun once more into the still forms on the dewy grass.

At twenty-five feet, magnum-pushed slugs are brutal.

Moving to the bodies, sprawling grotesquely in sudden death, Jim picked through the gore and gathered all the weapons, ammo, IDs, and money. At the agents’ cars, he opened the trunks and found high-powered rifles, an M-16, and several riot guns. He took them all, stashing them in his personal plane. He heard footsteps behind him and spun, ready to kill again.

It was Paul Green, a mechanic at the field.

The two men stood for a moment, looking at each other.

“You played hell, Jim,” Paul finally said. “I heard about Jeanne—I’m sorry.” He looked at the lumps on the grass, gathering dew. “What now, buddy?”

The two men had gone through school together. Jim leveled with him. “I head for Tennessee, to the Park. Might as well tell you, I’ve been part of the Rebels since ‘97.”

Paul smiled in the darkness. “Hell, Jim, everyone in town knew that. You want some company?”

Jim pointed to his private, twin-engined plane. “Let’s get ‘er gassed up and get gone. I got no reason to go home, now.”

EIGHT

In the southwest part of the nation, Colonel Hector Ramos’s Rebels began their search of deserted military bases, looking for weapons. In some bases, the military can be devious in hiding the main armament room, and it takes an ex-military man to find them. Hector knew right where to look.

“Hola!” Rosita Murphy said, stepping down into the coolness of the long corridor, gazing at the long rows of M-16s, M-60 machine guns, and other infantry weapons.

Hector grinned at the small woman. “Nice to know the Irish in you can still be overriden by your mother’s tongue.”

She returned his grin. “My mother made sure I could speak both languages, Colonel. I gather these,” she waved at the rows of arms, “go to Tennessee?”

“You gather correctly.” He looked at the new member in his command. The little green-eyed, Spanish-Irish lady was quite a delightful eyeful. “Ever met General Raines, Rosita?”

“No, sir. But I’m told he is quite a man?”

“He is that, little one. Mucho hombre.”

“He married?”

Hector’s grin widened and his dark eyes sparkled. “No.”

She glanced up at him. “Why are you grinning at me, Colonel?”

He shrugged. “No importa, Rosita.”

“Umm,” she replied, as she watched her commanding officer direct the removal of the weapons, most of them still encased in cosmoline, gleaming in grease under the beams of light from heavy lanterns now being placed in the corridor.

Unknowingly, she half turned toward the east, toward Tennessee.

General Bill Hazen, once the CG of the 82nd Airborne, another ranking officer who had seen the senselessness of attacking Tri-States and ordered his men out, stood in the rubble of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, directing the search for weapons, just as he had done at Fort Riley and Schilling AFB. He had encountered very little resistance. And what he had met had been put down brutally by his men, many of whom were paratroopers who had left Tri-States’ battlegrounds with the Old Man, not liking the idea of American fighting American.

When the old base had been searched, General Hazen pointed the truck convoy east, toward Tennessee.

In the east, General Krigel was having a fine old time in his searches for weapons. Krigel had been the first ranking officer to refuse to fight in Tri-States.

The commander of the federal forces, Major General Paul Como, stood listening to Brigadier General Krigel, growing angrier by the second.

“The bridges around the area been cleared?” Como asked. He knew they had not.

Krigel cleared his throat. “No, sir. The Navy SEALs have refused to go in. They say they won’t fight against fellow Americans. Some of the people in Tri-States were SEALs.”

“I don’t give a goddamn what they were! I gave orders for the SEALs to clear those bridges. I ought to have those bastards arrested.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I would sure hate to be the person who tried that.”

Como ignored that, fighting to keep his anger under control. He glanced at his watch. “All right, then—the hell with the SEALs. Get the Airborne dropped. It’s past time. What’s the hangup?”

“The drop zones have not been laid out.”

“What!”

“Sir, the Pathfinders went in last night, but they all deserted and joined the Rebels. To a man.”

"What!" Como roared.

“They refused to lay out the DZs. Sir, they said they won’t fight fellow Americans, and anyone who would is a traitor.”

“Goddamnit!” Como yelled. He pointed a finger at Krigel. “You get the Airborne up and dropped. Start and push—right now. You get those fucking Rangers spearheading.”

Krigel shifted his jump-booted feet. The moment he had been dreading. “We… have a problem, sir. Quite a number of the residents of the Tri-States… were… ah—”

“Paratroopers, Rangers, Marines, Air Force personnel.” The CG finished it for him. “Wonderful. How many are not going to follow my orders?”

Krigel gave it to him flatly. “About fifty percent of the Airborne have refused to go in. No Rangers, no Green Berets, no SEALs. About thirty percent of the Marines and regular infantry refuse to go in. They said, they’d storm the gates of hell for you, with only a mouthful of spit to fight with, but they say these people are Americans, and they haven’t done anything wrong. They are not criminals.”

The news came as no surprise to General Como. He had discussed this operation with General Russell, during the planning stages, and Como had almost resigned and retired. But General Russell had talked him out of it. Como was not happy with it, but he was a professional soldier, and he had his orders.

Krigel said, “General, this is a civilian problem. It’s not ours. Those people in there are Americans. They just want to be left alone. They are not in collusion with any foreign power, and they are not attempting to overthrow the government. Paul,”—he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder—“I still get sick at my stomach thinking about those Indians. Granted, we didn’t do those things, but we were in command of the men who did—some of them. It was wrong, and we should have been men enough to have those responsible for those… acts shot!”

General Como felt his guts churn; his breakfast lay heavy and undigested. He knew well what his friend was going through; and Krigel was his friend. Classmates at the Point. But an order was an order.

Como pulled himself erect. When he spoke, his voice was hard. “You’re a soldier, General Krigel, and you’ll obey orders, or by God, I’ll—”

“You’ll do what?” Krigel snapped, losing his temper. “Goddamn it, Paul, we’re creating another civil war. And you know it. Yes, I’m a soldier, and a damned good one. But by God, I’m an American first. This is a nation of free people, Paul? The hell it is! Those people in the Tri-States may have different ideas, but—”

"Goddamn you!" Como shouted. “Don’t you dare argue with me. You get your troopers up and dropped—now, or they won’t be your troopers. General Krigel, I am making that a direct order.”

“No, sir,” Kigel said, a calmness and finality in his voice. “I will not obey that order.” He removed his pistol from leather and handed it to General Como. “I’m through, Paul—that’s it.”

General Como, red-faced and trembling, looked at the .45 in his hand, then backhanded his friend with his other hand. Blood trickled from Krigel’s mouth. Krigel did not move.

Como turned to a sergeant major, who had stood impassively by throughout the exchange between the generals. “Sergeant Major, I want this man placed under arrest. If he attempts to resist, use whatever force is necessary to subdue him. Understood?” He gave the sergeant major Krigel’s .45.

The sergeant major gripped General Krigel’s arm and nodded. He didn’t like the order just given him. He’d been a member of a LRRP team in ‘Nam—back when he was a young buck—and the idea of special troops fighting special troops didn’t set well with him. American fighting American was wrong, no matter how you cut it.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant major said, but was thinking: just let me get General Krigel out of this area and by God, we’ll both link up with Raines’s Rebels. Us, and a bunch of other men.

General Como turned to his aide, Captain Shaw. “Tell General Hazen he is now in command of the 82nd. Get his troopers dropped. Those that won’t go, have them arrested. If they resist, shoot them. Tell General Cruger to get his Marines across those borders. Start it—right now!”

Shaw nodded his understanding, if not his agreement. The young captain was career military, and he had his orders, just as he was sure Raines’s people had theirs.

“Yes, sir.” He walked away. “Right away, sir.”

General Como blinked rapidly several times. He was very close to tears, and then he was crying, the tears running down his tanned cheeks. “Goddamn it,” he whispered. “What a fucking lash-up.”

“You all right, General?” an aide inquired.

Krigel shook his head to clear away the fog of memories. He brought himself to the present with a visible effort. Como had been killed on the tenth day of the fighting in the Tri-States; killed by a little girl with a .45-caliber pistol.

Ironic, Krigel thought. Como had spent several years in ‘Nam. No desk-soldier, Como spent as much time in the field with his men as possible. Hadn’t gotten a scratch.

“Sir?” the aide persisted.

“What? Oh… yes, Captain. I’m fine,” Krigel curved his mouth into a smile. “I was… lost in memories for a time.”

“The Tri-States, sir?”

“Yes. You were there, too, weren’t you, Van?”

“Yes, sir. For eight days. I… walked away from my unit on the morning of the ninth day. Couldn’t take any more of it. That… raping got to me.”

“And the torture?”

“I wasn’t a part of that, sir, and neither were any of my men. But I saw what was left of a woman after some… guys got through with her. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

“No,” Krigel sealed the statement. “No, you won’t, Van. I saw some of it in ‘Nam—done by Americans. You don’t forget it—you just learn to live with it.”

“Yes, sir. I was kinda hopin’ you’d say you eventually forget it.”

“I wish,” the general said, accompanying that with a sigh. “Everything loaded, Van?”

“Yes, sir. Ready to roll.”

“All right. We’ll cut southwest through Ohio until we pick up Interstate 75 at Cincinnati. We’ll stay on that most of the way into the mountains. That’s where we’ll link up with Ben.”

“You know General Raines, sir?”

Several officers and enlisted personnel had gathered around.

“Yes, I do, Van. Not well, but I know him.”

“What kind of man is he, sir?”

Krigel thought about that for a moment. “He was a Hell Hound in ‘Nam. Then he was a mercenary in Africa for a few years. But not of the stripe of Hartline; more a soldier of fortune type. Ben… is a dreamer, a visionary, a revolutionary. He’s a planner; a man who believes in as much freedom as possible for the law-abiding citizen. Ben Raines is… quite a man.”

“Ben is a very complicated man,” Jerre said to Doctor Canale. “A lot of people ask me about him; I never know exactly what to say to them.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“I’d be lying if I said no.”

“Well, you’re going to have your hands full in a few months, Jerre. It’s definitely twins.”

“A boy and a girl,” Jerre said with a smile.

“I won’t guess on that,” Canale grinned.

“That isn’t a guess. I know.”

The doctor did not argue. He had long ago given up arguing with pregnant women.

Jerre dressed and thanked the doctor. He winked at her and said to see him in a few weeks. A young man in his late twenties stood up when Jerre left the office, entering the waiting room.

He smiled at her. “How’d it go, Jerre?”

“I’m in great shape, Matt. Well,” she grinned, “at least my physical condition is good. I’m beginning to waddle like a duck.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said somberly.

“And you’re nuts!” she laughed at him, taking his arm and walking outside with him. “Oh, Matt—I can’t tell you how surprised I was to see you. And how glad. I heard you’d been killed in the last days of the invasion on Tri-States.”

He helped her into an old VW bug. “It got pretty close and scary there for a time.” He got under the wheel, cranked the old bug, and pulled away from the curb. “But a few of us managed to slip across the border into Canada. Then we got orders to set up a base in Northern California. And… here I am.”

“No steady girl, Matt?”

“You know better, Jerre. You’re the only girl I ever wanted.”

She touched his arm. “I never meant to hurt you, Matt. Please believe that.”

“Oh, I do, Jerre. You laid it right on the line from the first night we… I mean…”

“I know what you mean, Matt.”

They were silent until they pulled into the drive of a home set overlooking the Pacific, just north of Crescent City. He helped her into the house (she was always amused at his overprotectiveness) and into a chair.

She had to laugh at him. “Matt, I’m not at death’s door; I’m going to have a couple of babies, that’s all.”

“Scary business, Jerre. Spooks me,” he admitted. “I’m a big chicken when it comes to stuff like that.”

“We’re only a few miles from the clinic, so quit worrying. You’re making me nervous.”

He knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his. “Jerre…”

She shushed him with a genuine kiss. “Don’t say it Matt—not yet. You know how I feel about Ben.”

“Then…?”

“I had to, Matt. I had to let go. Ben has a mission; I’m not sure even he knows it—or will admit it—but he does, and I just couldn’t be a drag on him. It wouldn’t be fair to a lot of people.”

“And me, Jerre?”

“You know how I feel about you, Matt.”

“But you love General Raines?”

“Yes. And always will, Matt. Let’s be honest this time around, too.”

He grinned at her. “I’ll just wait then, Jerre. And I’ll wait with you—if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” she said softly. “I don’t mind at all.”

“If you were ten years younger, I’d whip your ass,” Ben said to Doctor Chase.

“You can’t reach that far,” the doctor fired back over the radio. “Not from Tennessee to Wyoming. Besides, she made me promise not to tell you.”

“Why did she do it, Lamar?”

“I… really don’t know, Ben,” the doctor lied. “I guess she just wanted some time to herself.”

“I think she wanted to find some nice young man her own age. Hell, I’m twenty-five years older than Jerre.”

Age has nothing to do with love and affection, you crazy gun-soldier, Chase thought. But if it’s easier for you to believe that, have at it. “That may be it, Ben.”

“That young man she used to see—Matt something-or-another, he’s out there. Yeah, that’s it. Well… I hope she’s happy. God knows the kid deserves it.”

To be as smart as you are, Raines, you don’t know jackshit about women. “Doctor Canale’s a good man, Ben, runs a fine clinic. Jerre will be all right. We intercepted one of Ramos’s transmissions; set on the same scrambler frequency. I like your plan, Ben.”

“I think it’s the only way, Lamar. The people have to get involved. We can’t do it all for them. Hell, I won’t do it all for them.”

“We’re moving to link up with Ramos in a few weeks, Ben. You know the plan—I’ll see you on target.”

Ben grinned. “Watch your blood pressure, old man. It’s tough taking care of a woman young enough to be your granddaughter.”

“What! How…?”

Ben signed off, leaving Doctor Chase bellowing into a cold mike. He turned just as Ike walked into the communications tent. Ben’s second-in-command wore a funny expression on his face.

“Ike.”

“Ben… you ’member that female reporter on NBC; that one you always said you’d like to strangle for her liberal views?”

“Roanna Hickman. Yes. What about her?”

“She just pranced her ass up to our easternmost outpost. Says she wants to do a story on you—for broadcast.”

Ben looked at him for a few seconds. “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

“Probably,” Ike agreed. “But let’s not get into that.”

NINE

The word went out from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to all base commanders: Order all personnel to keep a low profile when off base. No interference with Ben Raines’s Rebels unless the men are provoked. This is a fight between Lowry and Raines. Stay out of it.

The message was intercepted by Al Cody’s people. Cody went straight to VP Lowry. He tossed the decoded message on the VP’s desk and sat down.

“It’s all in the open now, Weston. No more playing pitty-pat.”

VP Lowry read the message and then pushed it from him. “Fuck the military. We don’t need them. Hartline is beefing up his men to the tune of a hundred a day. The intelligence reports we’ve received all state that Raines won’t make a move before the first of the year—at the earliest. By that time Hartline will have a full division under his command. Maybe more than that. Raines is helping destroy himself and doesn’t even know it. The bastard is stupid.”

Cody shook his head. “Don’t ever think that, Weston. Raines may be a lot of things; stupid is not one of them. He’s got something up his sleeve.”

But Lowry would only shake his head. “He’s too confident in the people. Oh, they’ve had their little victories in the towns around the mountain base of Raines. But that is because Raines’s main force is so near. Let him play his game—it just gives us more time. Hartline’s plan is working.” The VP giggled. He clicked on a Betamax. “You never saw this, did you?”

“Saw what?”

“Sabra Olivier sucking Hartline’s pecker.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Watch.”

Al Cody watched with a sick sort of sensation in his stomach. He was solidly opposed to this type of filth… but still, he felt himself becoming sexually aroused at the sight. He glanced at Lowry. The VP was rubbing his crotch, a tiny bit of spittle had gathered at the corner of his mouth and his eyes were… odd-looking.

Cody closed his eyes and willed his slight erection to go away. It’s for the good of the people, he reminded himself. All this… perversion is for the good of the entire nation.

The end will justify the means, he thought. Got to keep that thought in mind. The end must justify the means. Who said that? Hell, I don’t know!

“Come on, baby,” Hartline’s rough voice cut into Cody’s thoughts. “We’re almost there.”

It’s all for the good of the people. Cody kept that thought.

“Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your rocks, too, Sabra-honey…”

The good of the people. Raines must be stopped…

“…you’re slick as 10W40.”

…by any means possible. And if that entails something as…

“You’re not shivering from the cold, Sabra-honey. It’s…”

…disgusting as this is, then so be it. This nation must…

“…just that you like my cock, right, baby?”

…endure.

“Ah—that’s good, Sabra.”

Must endure.

“How’d you like to mount that from behind, Al?”

“What?”

Cody opened his eyes just as Lowry was turning up the lights, turning off the Betamax.

“She’s still a good-looking piece of ass, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Cody sighed. “Yes, she is, Weston.”

For the good of the nation.

“I think I’ll ask Hartline if he’ll…”

Cody swallowed hard.

“…bring Sabra to me. We can use the retreat. I like women in…”

We? Good God, does he think I want a part of this filth? I couldn’t do…

“…their forties. All that maturity. And did you see those tits—the way her nipples…”

…anything like that! I was raised in the church. I…

“…stuck out. God! that turned me on, Al. You and I—I’ll get Hartline to get you that blonde-headed reporter that you…”

…just couldn’t do anything like that. Disgusting! It’s…

“…once said was so sexy-looking.” VP Lowry laughed. “I bet you she could give you head you’d never forget, Al. You know, Al—we go back a long ways, don’t we, ol’ friend? We know the American people have to be controlled, just like the press. Reviewing history, say, oh, from the early ‘60s on… well, I think—believe—that if the press had been muzzled and the people controlled a bit more firmly, none of this tragedy would have occurred. I sure do believe that, Al. Yes, sir, Al, you know as well as I, it’s all for the…”

…good of the country.

“…good of the country.”

“What kind of game are you playing, Miss Hickman?” Ben asked her.

They were seated outside, a cool but not unpleasant breeze fanning them. Roanna had seen Dawn and the two women embraced and chatted for a few moments. Dawn now sat beside her on one side of the camp table, facing Ben and Ike and Cecil.

“No game, General,” Roanna said firmly. “Game time is all over. We’re all putting our lives on the line this go-around. For the women, our asses, literally.”

She brought the men up to date on what Hartline was doing, and had done.

“If this is true,” Cecil said, “and for the moment we shall accept it as fact, Ms. Olivier is playing a very dangerous game.”

“And you, as well,” Ike added.

“More than you know,” Roanna said bitterly. “Sabra’s husband said if she saw Hartline again, he was leaving. She couldn’t explain what she was doing, for fear Hartline would torture the truth out of Ed—that’s her husband. He walked out day before yesterday. Took the boy, left the daughter behind. I wish it had been reversed. Sabra’s told me Hartline is looking at Nancy… you know what I mean.”

“How old is the girl?” Ike asked.

“Fifteen. Takes after her mother, too. Gorgeous.”

Ben studied the woman for a few seconds. “You mind taking a PSE test?”

“Not at all,” Roanna replied. Then she smiled, and her cynical reporter’s eyes changed. She was, Ben thought, really a very pretty lady. “What’s the matter, General; am I too liberal for your tastes?”

“Liberals are, taken as a whole, just too far out of touch with reality to suit me,” Ben said. He softened that with a smile.

“I’d like to debate that with you sometime, General. Yes, that might be the way to go with this interview. Hard-line conservative views against a liberal view.”

“I’m not a hard-line conservative, Miss Hickman,” Ben told her. “How could I be a hard-line conservative and believe in abortion, women’s rights, the welfare of children and elderly… and everything else we did in the Tri-States?”

“You also shot and hanged people there,” she fired back at him.

“We sure did,” Ben’s reply was breezy, given with a smile of satisfaction. “And we proved that crime does not have to exist in a society.”

“I seem to recall you ordered the hanging of a sixteen-year-old boy, General.”

“I damn sure did, Miss Hickman.”

“You all know where we stand on issues. The people have voted on them, all over this three-state area. We’ve been holding town meetings since early last winter on the issues and laws we’ll live with and under,” Ben said. “Now, ninety-one percent of the people agreed to our system of law. The rest left. And that’s the way it’s going to be or you all can take this governorship—that I didn’t want in the first place—and I’ll go back to writing my journal.”

“Ben—” Doctor Chase said.

“No!” Ben had stood firm. “I came into this office this morning and there was a damned paper on my desk asking me to reconsider the death penalty for that goddamned punk over in Missoula.”

“He’s sixteen years old, Governor,” an aide said.

“That’s his problem. His IQ is one twenty-eight. The shrink says he knows right from wrong and is healthy, mentally and physically. He is perfectly normal. He stole a car, got drunk, and drove a hundred fucking miles an hour down the main street. He ran over and killed two elderly people whose only crime was attempting to cross a street… in compliance with the existing traffic lights. He admitted what he did. He is not remorseful. I would reconsider if he was sorry for what he’d done. But he isn’t. And tests bear that out. He has admitted his true feelings; said the old people didn’t have much time left them anyway, so what the hell was everybody getting so upset about? Well, piss on him! He’s a punk. That’s all he would ever be—if I let him live—which I have no intention of doing. If he puts so little emphasis on the lives of others, then he shouldn’t mind terribly if I snuff out his.”

Ben glared at the roomful of silent men. “So, Mr. Garrett,”—he looked at a uniformed man standing quietly across the room—“at six o’clock day after tomorrow, dawn, you will personally escort young Mr. Randolph Green to the designated place of execution and you will see to it that he is hanged by the neck until he is dead. The day of the punk… is over.”

“Yes, sir,” Garrett said. “It’s about time some backbone was shoved into the law.” He left the room.

Ben looked around him. “Any further questions as to how the law is going to work?”

No one had anything further to say.

“And you felt that was the right and just thing to do?” Roanna asked.

“I did and do.”

“And that is the type of justice you plan to prescribe for the entire nation? If you are victorious against Lowry and Hartline?”

“Oh, we’ll be victorious, Miss Hickman. I have no doubts about that. But as to your question, no, that is not the type of justice I plan for the entire nation.”

“But your Tri-States…”

“Was for the people who chose to live under those laws. Not for everybody. No, Miss, once the battle is over, my people will return to the site of the old Tri-States—or wherever they choose to set up, and there we shall live out our lives, under our system of law, all the while paying a fair share of taxes to whatever central government you people happen to set up.”

Reporter studied soldier. Roanna slowly nodded her head in understanding. “You could set up your… Tri-States right now, couldn’t you? You don’t have to do this thing—this battle, do you?”

“No, Miss Hickman, we don’t. It’s just that… I believe that a people should live as freely as possible, and not under a dictatorship, such as the one Lowry and Cody and Hartline now seem to have.”

“General, you are not… you have ideals and, I guess, a certain amount of compassion that was not reported about you when you opened your borders a couple of years ago.”

Ben shrugged. “I’ve always maintained, Miss Hickman, the press doesn’t always report the truth, or do it fairly. They report what they perceive as the truth.” He looked at Ike. “Ike, would you take Miss Hickman and have her tested?”

Roanna looked at Ben. “General, what happens if I fail the test?”

“You will then be questioned under drug-induced hypnosis.”

“And if I fail that?”

Ben’s smile held no humor. “Why… you won’t wake up, Miss Hickman.”

The reporter shuddered.

“VP Lowry’s got the hots for you, baby,” Hartline told Sabra. “I showed him the film of you going down on me and it got him all worked up.”

They lay on tangled sheets in Hartline’s Richmond townhouse. Sabra had not asked what had happened to the occupants of the townhouse. She felt she knew. She fought back a shudder and lit a cigarette. Even after all these years since the world blew up, the cigarettes still tasted like shit. “And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing, yet, baby.” The mercenary’s fingers were busy between her legs.

Respond—respond! she told herself. Get into the act and make it good. She closed her eyes and pictured her husband, Ed, making love to her. She felt a warmth begin to spread down her belly. “Do I make brownie points by fucking the VP?”

Hartline laughed. “You’re all right, baby, you know that? I never miss with gals. I can peg ‘em right first time, every time. I knew you fucked your way to the top.”

I got there by hard work, you son of a bitch! Sabra silently cursed him. “You’re very astute, Sam. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Sure, you get brownie points, baby. What the hell! You ever seen Lowry’s wife? Jesus,” he shuddered. “What a bag. Tell me,” he asked offhand, “what have you heard from little Roanna?”

“Nothing.”

Quicker than a strike of a snake, Hartline cupped a breast and brutally squeezed it. Sabra screamed in pain.

“Don’t lie to me, baby—I don’t really trust you; not yet. But don’t ever lie to me.”

“I wasn’t lying to you!” Sabra gasped the reply.

“Oh, I know it,” Hartline said, shifting into another personality. “That was just a little reminder not to ever lie to me.”

He raised up on an elbow and kissed the bruised breast.

Sabra waited for the pain to subside and said, “Have you given any thought to my doing the story on you?”

“Yeah. But I haven’t made up my mind yet. And I don’t look for little Roanna to come back.”

“She’ll be back.”

“Maybe, and maybe all this is some sort of little tricky game you cooked up inside that pretty head. We’ll see about it. Right now, you get me hard. You know how I like it.”

Sabra shifted positions without hesitation and took the mercenary orally. Her breast still hurt from the squeezing of Hartline’s hard hand. There were too many lives at stake for her to slip now. She was committed. But had she known what Hartline was thinking while she performed fellatio on him, Sabra would have cheerfully bitten his cock off.

“How are we receiving these from Levant?” Ben asked, after reading the first secret communiqué from the senior FBI agent.

“Scrambled radio messages on an old military frequency,” Cecil told him. “The man’s taking a hell of a chance doing this. Got to admire his courage.”

“So Lowry got to all these top senators and representatives through fear.”

“And rape,” Ike said. “These others,” he pointed to the second row of names, “are the ones President Addison can trust. The only ones who would vote aye on anything Addison proposed.”

“But not enough of them to make any difference,” Ben noted.

“Yeah. Lowry’s slick, no doubt about it. But this other message, right down there, interests me more.”

The message read:

Lowry might be unstable. Showing signs of slight mental deterioration. Believed the VP about to ask Hartline to set up liaison with NBC chief in Richmond, Sabra Olivier. Has video tape of lady with Hartline; watches it daily. Must warn you if lady is playing games, she is playing in the big leagues, way out of her field. If aforementioned lady is working with you people, ease her out. Hartline is insane, but brilliantly so. If he discovers the game—if any—the lady will die hard.

“You know what this tells me?” Cecil said.

Ben and Ike glanced at the black educator-turned-Rebel.

“The Secret Service is not happy with Lowry either. Levant has some of them on his side, as well.”

“Yeah,” Ike slowly nodded his head in agreement. “No other way he could have gotten this without their help. Or at least it would have been very difficult.” He glanced at Ben; but the man appeared deep in thought. “Ben?”

“Maybe we can do this without a lot of bloodshed,” Ben finally spoke. “Maybe we can pull a Banana Republic coup d’etat.”

“Assassination?” Cecil asked.

"If the Secret Service has people loyal to Addison who will go along with it.”

“Those guys aren’t exactly your average hit-type person,” Ike reminded him. “They’re a pretty true-blue bunch of men and women. You know what I mean.”

Ben grinned at his friend. “Not like us old Hell Hounds and SEALs, eh, Ike?”

Ike returned his grin, the gesture taking years off the Mississippi-born Medal of Honor-winner. “Yeah. They ain’t been trained with piano wire and K-Bars. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’m not questioning their courage. They’d die for the people they’re protecting—that’s one of the risks of the job. But to cold-bloodedly kill… I don’t know, Ben.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Cecil injected. “If there is a chance we can stop any further mass bloodshed; any way to get this country out from under Cody and Lowry and Hartline… it’s worth it.”

“All right, let’s see if Levant goes along with it,” Ben said. “All he can do is tell us no; he can’t say any more than that without exposing his own position.”

“I wish there was some way to help the Olivier girl, Nancy,” Ike said. “Fifteen is a rough age to be initiated into the kinkiness of a noodle like Hartline.”

“I prefer not to think about it,” Ben said. “But I must admit, I haven’t been successful since Miss Hickman mentioned it. And speaking of Miss Hickman…” Ben cut his eyes.

The reporter was walking along a path with Dawn. Roanna had been in the camp for less than twenty-four hours, had successfully passed her PSE testing, and then, to Ben’s surprise, had voluntarily requested the hypnosis testing. She looked a little shaky, with Dawn holding on to her elbow.

“Doctor Harris said she fought the drug,” Cecil said. “Seems she had some… events in her past she was reluctant to bring under the light of memory, to use his words.”

“Oh?” Ben looked at him.

“Nothing to do with us,” Cecil assured him. “Childhood matters—before the big war of ‘88.”

“Abuse?” Ike asked.

“Yes—of the worst kind. When the world exploded, her mother was off on a trip to New York. Roanna was seventeen. Seems her father picked that moment to… ah… resume his molestation. Roanna killed him with his own .38. Doctor Harris said she broke down under the drugs and wept for a long time. Said he believes she finally got it out of her system—the memories and the guilt associated with the killing. That must be a terrible thing.”

“She looks pretty damn tough to me,” Ike said. “And comes across that way, too. But maybe that’s just some kind of act.”

“Coping,” Ben said. “Defense coloration.” But his eyes were not on the NBC reporter, but on Dawn. He had seen quite a lot of her in the Penthouse spread on her. Now he would like to see more. Much more. Jerre was fading into the vault of memories. Ben was both happy and sad she had found her ex-boyfriend, and viewed his debut as a father with mixed feelings.

For a moment, he was reminded of his last moments with Salina…

In the last days of the mopping up in the Tri-States, only a few thousand men and women had made it out of the Tri-States alive. It had taken the government thirty-five days to crush the dream of Ben Raines and his followers.

Now, in a mountainous, heavily wooded area, west and north of the Tri-States capital, Vista, HQ’s company of Tri-States’ Rebels prepared to fight their last fight. Most of them had been together for years. The children with the company should have been gone and safe by now, but they’d been cut off and forced to return to the main body. It was now back to alpha, and omega was just around the corner, waiting for most of them.

There was a way out, but it was a long shot.

Ben sat talking with his adopted twins, Jack and Tina.

“Jack, you’ve got to look after Salina, now. I’m going to split the company and lead a diversion team. I think it’s our only way out. I’ll be all right, son; don’t worry about me. I’m still an ol’ curly wolf with some tricks up my sleeve.”

“Then you’ll join us later?” Tina asked, tears running down her face.

“Sure. Count on it.” Ben shook Jack’s hand and kissed Tina. “Go on, now, join up with Colonel Elliot. I want to talk with your mother.”

Salina came to his side, slipping her hand in his. They were both grimy from gunsmoke and dirt and sweat. Ben thought she had never looked more beautiful than during her pregnancy; she had stood like a dusty Valkyrie by his side, firing an M-16 during the heaviest of fighting.

“We didn’t have much time together, did we, Ben?”

“We have a lot of time left us, babe,” Ben replied gently.

She smiled; a sad smile. “Con the kids, General. Don’t try to bullshit me.”

“I wish we’d had more time,” Ben said ruefully. He kissed her, very gently, very tenderly, without passion or lust. A man kissing a woman good-bye.

Salina grasped at the moment. “Is there any chance at all?”

“Not much of one.” He leveled with her.

She tried a smile, then suddenly began to weep, softly, almost silently. “I love you, Ben Raines,” she said, kissing him. She smiled through the tears. “Even if you are a honky.”

“And I love you, Salina.” He fought back his own tears to return her smile. “Now you step ‘n’ fetch yore ass on outta here, baby.”

And together they laughed.

Ben helped her to her feet, gazed at her for a moment, then left her, walking away to join the group he was taking on diversion. Abruptly, without any warning, the silent forest erupted into blood and violence. A platoon of paratroopers, quiet and deadly, came at the Rebels; the peaceful woods turned into hand-to-hand combat.

With his old Thompson on full automatic, Ben burned a clip into the paratroopers, bringing down half a dozen. Salina screamed behind him, Ben spun in time to see her impaled on a bayonet. Her mouth opened and closed in silent agony; her hands slowly crawled snakelike down her stomach to clutch at the rifle barrel, to try to pull the hot pain from her stomach. The bayonet had driven through the unborn baby. Salina screamed as she began miscarrying.

“Jesus Christ!” the trooper yelled, as he saw what he had done. He tried to pull the blade from her belly. The blade was stuck. He pulled the trigger—reflex from hard training—and blew the blade free, sending half a dozen slugs into Salina, throwing her backward from the force.

Ben shot the trooper through the head with his .45 pistol, blowing half the man’s head off. Salina collapsed to the ground.

Ben was at her side as his Rebels, offering no mercy, took the fight to the troopers. The Rebels took no prisoners.

Salina was fading quickly. She smiled a bloody smile and said, “Sorry ‘bout the baby, honey. But with our luck it would probably have been a koala bear.”

She closed her eyes and died.

At Ben’s orders, the Rebels drifted silently into the forest, taking their wounded, leaving their dead; Salina and the boy lay among the still and the quiet and the dead. Ants had already begun their march across her face. She lay in a puddle of thickening blood, one hand on the arm of her dead child.

TEN

“How are the new people working out, fitting in?” Ben asked Cecil.

“A-okay, so far. Slater and Green are both prior-service. Air Force. Judy Fowler’s going to be fine. I think they’re all going to make it, Ben. But we’re getting to the point of overtraining.”

“Some of the people getting edgy?”

“More than a few. Jimmy Brady is hell-on-wheels with a rifle. Ike says he’s never seen anyone better. Dawn Bellever is never going to be any great shakes with any weapon, but she managed to qualify on the range. I’ve assigned her to your office,” he dropped that in without pausing.

“All right,” Ben said absently. “I want only the very best to hit the field—if that time comes. Assign all the others to non-combat duties; but make sure they understand they are to fight if it comes to that.”

Cecil looked at his friend.

Ben looked up, catching the worry in the man’s eyes. “Something, Cecil?”

“Guess I’ve delayed long enough, Ben—you’d better hear it from me and not from the grapevine.”

“We’ve been together a long time, Cecil. Never been any lies between us.”

“Call a spade a spade, eh, Ben?” Cecil laughed at the old joke.

“I’m glad you said that and not me, buddy. Come on, Cecil—what gives?”

“Tina.”

Ben sat up in his chair.

“She’s left the base camp.”

“Got her a boyfriend?”

“No, Ben,” Cecil spoke softly. “She’s gone with Gray’s Scouts. Out in the field.”

Ben started to blow wide open. He caught himself and forced himself to calm down. Ben took several deep breaths and relaxed in the chair. “I keep forgetting she is a grown woman. And damn good at her work. But I would like to know why I wasn’t told of this.”

“You know the rules, Ben: no questions asked in that outfit.”

“Where are they training?”

Cecil shrugged. “I don’t know, Ben. If I did, I’d tell you. You know that’s the way Captain Gray wanted it. But he is due to call in next week… if you choose to interfere.” There was a definite note of disapproval in Cecil’s voice.

Ben picked up on it. “I won’t do that, Cecil. It’s her life.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Cecil said with a smile. “Thought I knew you pretty well.” He left the big tent, walking toward his own. He thought: I know Tina is adopted; but Ben thinks of her as his own. I wonder how I would react if a kid of mine joined that crazy bunch?

Gray’s Scouts were formed during the weeks just after the government invasion and consequent crushing of the Rebel’s dream. Their job was to infiltrate government offices; act as saboteurs; perform long-range recon into enemy territory; and anything else Captain Dan Gray might dream up that was dirty, dangerous, and bloody.

Captain Gray had left Special Forces before the invasion, having no taste for civilized man fighting civilized man, when, as was the case, the “enemy” was simply a group of men and women attempting to build a livable society and take care of their own.

Which the Tri-States were doing perfectly well and without so-called “Federal Government advice.”

Gray had spent five years in Britain’s SAS (Special Air Service) and was as wild and randy as those boys are trained to be.

To date they had been involved in only minor hit-and-run operations against the military units loyal to Lowry and Cody. But like Ben’s Rebels in the mountains, they were chomping at the bit for a good fight.

It would not be long in coming… for any of them.

Colonel Hector Ramos headed the first convoy to reach the mountains. He and his personnel set up on the western boundaries of the Great Smokies, patrolling a seventy-mile stretch of terrain, from the Georgia line to just south of Maryville, Tennessee. They had traveled across Texas, Louisiana, then angled northeast through Mississippi and a portion of Alabama.

General Bill Hazen’s convoy rolled in the day after Ramos arrived and took up positions from Maryville to Newport. Major Conger was less than three hours behind him. Conger deployed his personnel—the smallest detachment—as roaming scouts and listening posts along the Virginia line.

General Krigel pulled in last and set up positions on the eastern side of the mountains, from Greenville, Tennessee, well down into North Carolina.

The combined forces were not, as great armies go, terribly impressive. But there were no more great armies of the world. What world remained was still staggering and reeling under the aftereffects of the great war of 1988. So now, ten thousand armed men and women was a very impressive sight to behold.

Especially as they began setting up local militia and kicking out all federal police and arming the people.

“You mean,” a man in Greenville asked a Rebel captain, “it’s as simple as this?”

“Nothing is as simple as it appears,” the Rebel told him, “if you don’t have the balls to use that weapon we just gave you. Don’t think for one second the central government isn’t going to come in here after we leave. Because they damn sure will send agents in. But if those agents see that you people are prepared to fight and die for your beliefs, and are organized and trained to do so, they’ll back off. They don’t have the people to fight an entire nation; they can’t put you all in jail—not an entire nation. It would deplete the workforce and destroy the government. It’s just like General Black said back in the mid-eighties, in one of his books: If the people would organize, by the thousands, and just stop paying taxes—what is the government going to do? Put several million people in jail? How? Where? Fifteen police officers in this town are going to arrest five thousand armed citizens? No way. It’s all been a colossal bluff and we bought it for nearly two hundred years.

“Now General Black is not advocating total anarchy—not at all. All he wants to do is restore power back to the people. And it looks like a gun is the only way to accomplish that.

“All right—you’ve got the guns and the meeting places. The rest is up to you. We’re not going to wet-nurse you. If you don’t want freedom, fine, hang it up and roll over and take it in the ass. But if you love freedom, then learn how to use those weapons—and use them!”

“So you think we have a chance of pulling this off without open warfare?” General Krigel asked.

The COs of Ben’s four brigades sat in a tent in Base Camp One, almost in the dead center of the Great Smokies.

“With Lowry gone I believe the rest would be downhill,” Ben replied.

“What does Levant say about it?” Conger asked.

“He hasn’t replied to our message as yet. Maybe he rejected it right off; maybe he’s quietly sounding people out. I don’t know.”

General Hazen placed his coffee mug carefully on the camp table. He said, “If Levant says it’s no-go, for whatever reason, we still have an option.”

Ben looked at him; waited.

“Gray’s Scouts,” Hazen said. “A suicide mission. One team of handpicked Scouts. It’s something to think about.”

Only Krigel knew of Tina’s joining the Scouts. Ben had discussed it with him just the day before. Krigel looked at Ben for any sign of outwardly shown emotion. He saw none.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Ben said. “But if it does, that’s the way we’ll go. All right, let’s talk about the troops. How ready are they?”

“My people say if you’ll give them the green light, they can kick Hartline’s bunch right in the ass and be back home in time for lunch,” Hazen said with a grin.

“I gather morale is high,” Ben said dryly.

“I’m having trouble keeping their feet on the ground,” the general replied.

“My people are ready,” Colonel Ramos said. “This rest period is what they needed. They’re hot to mix it up.”

“Same here,” Conger said.

Krigel nodded his head. “We’re all honed fine, Ben. How much longer do we wait?”

“I’ve deliberately let the word out we wouldn’t strike before the first of the year at the earliest. Preferably not until midsummer of 2000. I was afraid many of the civilians would back off from helping themselves; reports coming in say that is true. I keep forgetting that even though many of the people have served in the military, in their hearts, they’re civilians. Hartline’s men crushed a small town up in Ohio; just stood out and shelled it and then shot the survivors.”

“Haven’t any of these goddamned people ever heard of flanking tactics?” Hazen growled. “Damnit, are we going to have to wet-nurse the entire nation?”

“Steady, trooper,” Krigel laughed at his friend. “You seem to forget that for a decade and a half before the war of ‘88, we didn’t have a draft and the country was not what one could call pro-military…”

Ben let his commanders rattle sabers at each other as his mind took him back thirty years, back to the words of one of the greatest guerrilla fighters the world had ever known: Colonel Bull Dean.

They had been waiting to lift off from Rocket City, heading into North Vietnam, to HALO in: high altitude, low opening. They would jump at twenty thousand feet, their chutes opening automatically when they got under radar.

“We’re losing this war, son,” Bull had said. “And there is nothing that guys like you and me can do about it—we can only prolong it. Back home, now, it’s gonna get worse—much worse. Patriotism is gonna take a nose dive, sinking to new depths of dishonor. There is no discipline in the schools; the courts have seen to that. America is going to take a pasting for a decade, maybe longer, losing ground, losing face, losing faith.”

How true his words had been.

A month after Bull had spoken those words, and had supposedly been killed, Ben was wounded and sent home. To a land he could not relate to.

He found he could not tolerate the attitudes in America toward her Vietnam vets. He was restless, and missed the action he had left behind. He had been sent home to a land of hairy, profane young men who sewed the American flag on the seats of their dirty jeans and marched up and down the streets, shouting ugly words, all in the name of freedom—their concept of freedom.

Ben spent two years in Africa, fighting in dozens of little no-name wars as a mercenary. Then he had returned and found, to his amazement, he could write, and make a living at it. He had lived in Louisiana for fifteen years. Until the great war of 1988.

He remembered that strange phone call he’d received that night so long ago. Those two words: Bold Strike. The words Bull Dean had told him to remember. He recalled his confusion.

That man who had visited him back in ‘84 with the ridiculous idea that Bull Dean and Carl Adams were still alive; that they were covertly heading some underground guerrilla army; that they were going to take over the government.

Ben had sent the man packing; had laughed at him.

Then, only a week before the world exploded in nuclear and germ warfare, Ben had called the CO of his old outfit, the Hell Hounds. Sam Cooper had told Ben to “hunt a hole and keep your head down, partner.”

Then the connection had been broken.

Five days later the world blew up.

“…about this Hickman woman, Ben?” he caught the last of Colonel Ramos’s question.

Ben shook himself back to reality; broke the misty bounds of memories of things past and people long dead and gone. He looked up and smiled.

“Sorry, Hec. I was long ago and far away.”

“We all do it, Ben,” Hector said. “I sometimes have to fight my way back from memories. When my wife and I were stationed out at Huachuca. The kids…” He trailed it off, then cleared his throat. “Never did find them. Finally gave up hope about five years ago.” He shook his head. “What I was saying, Ben: Have you and this Hickman woman worked out any code?”

“No. That’s Cecil’s department. I never was much for secret handshakes and codes. Personally, I wish this Olivier woman had never dreamed this up. I think she’s playing a game that is going to get her killed.”

Hector nodded. “You know I soldiered with Sam Hartline, don’t you, Ben?”

Ben’s head came up, eyes sharp. “No, I didn’t, Hec. When was this?”

“Seventy-nine. We were stationed at Bragg together. He was prior service and reenlisted. I think he’d had about three or four years in Africa—this was right after ‘Nam—and came back stateside and went Special Forces. He got kicked out of the Army; a rape charge that was never proved. But we all knew he did it. Young girl. ‘Bout twelve or thirteen, as I recall. He’s loco de atar, that one. And cruel mean. All twisted inside. This Olivier lady, she’s got courage, but I don’t think she really knows what she’s up against.”

“Beginning this Friday,” Hartline told Cody, “I want your cryptography section to videotape all shows that have anything about me or Raines on them. Go over them from top to bottom for coded messages.”

“Olivier is playing games?”

“Why, hell, yes. Whole goddamn thing is a game. One day she hates me so badly her eyes are like a snake; next day she’s inviting me to her house and lickin’ my dick like it’s peppermint candy—doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“And…?”

“So we’ll let her play her little games. If she’s sending codes to Raines—and I believe she will—I’ll give her all the false information she can use; let her play her games. Raines isn’t going to buy it. He’s an ol’ curly wolf that’ll puke up the poison soon as it hits his stomach. Wish I could figure out some way to kill that son of a bitch.”

Cody let that slide. Lots of people would like to figure out a way to kill Ben Raines; lots of people had tried to kill him—for years. Cody was beginning to think the man was untouchable. And he wasn’t alone in that. He had heard of those who felt the man was God-touched; that even some in his command were viewing him as if he rested on some higher plane than mere mortals. Some of those he had seen broken under torture went out calling Raines’s name. Not Jesus Christ. Not the Holy Mother. Not God—but Ben Raines.

It was enough to make a person wonder…

He looked at Sam Hartline. “Lowry wants the Olivier woman… sexually.”

“Yeah, I know. He can have her any time he wants her. I’ve got that all set up. She thinks by fucking him she’ll get brownie points. She’s just like all broads: keeps her brains between her legs. Let Lowry get his jollies humping her, then we’ll dispose of her. Who do you want?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What cunt do you want, Al—Lowry wants you with him when he jazzs Sabra.”

“I…” Cody shook his head. “I don’t want any, Hartline.”

The mercenary laughed. “That’s not the way we play this game, Cody. What’s the matter, Al? You like boys, maybe?”

“Good God, no!”

“Okay, then, I’ll get Little Bit for you.”

“Who?”

“Jane Moore. The blond cunt you’ve mentioned a time or two. Little Bit, I call her.”

“I don’t want her, Sam.”

“She’d be a fine romp, I’m thinking. Hell, she isn’t but about five feet tall and you know what’s said about those kinds of gals: Big woman, little pussy; little woman, all pussy.”

Hartline laughed and slapped the desk with his heavy hand.

Al Cody felt sick at his stomach. He thought he might know, now, how an animal felt trapped in a cage; or like that man riding a tiger; afraid to stay on, afraid to get off.

He fought back his sickness and wondered how he ever got involved with this sick creature who walked upright like a man.

“I’ll set it up for next week,” Hartline said, rising from his chair. “That’ll give you time to think about dipping your wick in that blond muff.” He found that hysterically amusing and stood chuckling for a moment. He sobered and looked down at Cody. “Relax, Al. You act like a man who is about to be hanged instead of a man who is about to get some prime gash.”

Cody inwardly winced at that. “That isn’t it. Look, Sam, you’ve been around the world a number of times; seen things that most other people haven’t seen. One of my agents reported something to me last week. I found it… well, odd, to say the least.”

“Oh?” Hartline sat down.

“Yes. At first I dismissed it as an overactive imagination under stress. The men were on the fringes of a dead city…”

“Where?”

“Memphis. They were looking for another suspected Rebel cell. They didn’t find that, but they… well, goddamnit, they said they saw rats in there as big as dogs!”

Hartline was silent for a moment. Cody thought the mercenary was going to laugh at him and was surprised when the man said, “I don’t doubt it. There is no telling what aftereffects the bombings might have produced. What the radiation and the germs might have done to genes in humans and animals. I’m surprised something like this hasn’t turned up before this.”

“Are you serious!”

“Sure,” Hartline said with a shrug. “Scientists don’t have—and never did have—the vaguest idea what massive doses of radiation might cause or produce in humans or animals after a period of time. There were monsters born in Japan after the bombings in ‘45—I’ve seen the pictures and read the reports; but the Japs and the Americans hushed it all up.”

“Monsters! Jesus Christ!”

“Oh, hell, Cody. I’ve seen things in Africa and Asia that would make a dog-sized rat look like something of beauty. Just tell your men to be careful; don’t get bitten by one. No telling what that might do.”

Hartline laughed at the expression on Cody’s face. He was still laughing as he walked out of the director’s office.

Cody rubbed his face with his hands. “As if Ben Raines isn’t enough to worry about,” he muttered. “Now I have monsters and boogymen and king-sized rats. What next?”

He looked up as the buzzer sounded on his intercom. “Yes?”

“Mr. Levant to see you, sir,” his secretary said.

“Send him in, Sally.” Cody leaned back in his chair. It would be good to see someone he trusted; someone who was normal. Tommy Levant was a good man, a man Cody knew he could trust. Top agent.

Wish I had more like Levant, he thought.

ELEVEN

“Something troubling you, General?”

Ben turned at the sound of the voice. He had been standing beside a huge old tree, really gazing at nothing, thinking about nothing of any importance.

“Not really, Ms. Bellever. I was letting my mind stay in neutral, so to speak.”

“I do that sometimes,” she said, stepping closer to him. She wore some type of very light perfume, and the scent played man-woman games in Ben’s head. “Or I used to, that is.”

“Having some regrets, Ms. Bellever?”

She fixed blue eyes on him. “Are you serious? God, yes, I have regrets. Don’t you?”

“No,” Ben said, his tone leaving no room for anything other than truth. “This is something that has to be done, so we’re doing it.” He smiled, the gesture taking years from him. “Satchel Paige once said ‘Don’t ever look back; something might be gainin’ on you.’”

She laughed as the dusk of late evening was casting purple shadows around the park, cloaking them in darkening twilight, seeming to make the moment more intimate, pulling them closer.

“And is that your philosophy, General?”

“Well, I’ve heard worse.”

“I’ve seen you looking at me several times.”

“You’re nice to look at,” Ben admitted. “I enjoy looking at a beautiful woman.” He smiled in the dusk and she saw the flashing of his teeth against a deeply tanned face.

“Something amusing, General?”

“I think you know what I was thinking.”

“You saw the Penthouse spread?”

“Oh, yes.”

She returned his smile. “Like what you saw?”

“You on a fishing expedition?”

“Everyone likes to be stroked from time to time.”

He laughed at that. “Yes, Ms. Bellever, I liked what I saw very much.”

She waited, and Ben had a hunch he knew what she was waiting for. It had been several months since he had been with a woman, and Ben was a virile man; but he wondered about this lady. Her motives, in particular. So he waited.

After a minute had ticked by in silence, Dawn chuckled softly. “You are a very suspicious man, General Raines. Are you always this suspicious?”

“Suspicious might be the wrong choice of words. Try careful.”

“Despite what you might think, General—and I don’t blame you for thinking it—I’m not in the habit of throwing myself at men.”

“I shouldn’t think you would have to throw yourself at anybody.”

“If that’s a compliment, thank you.”

“It was.”

A night bird called plaintively, its voice penetrating the settling gloom. Somewhere in the distance, the call was answered. The asking and the reply touched the man and woman with an invisible caress.

“Nice to know I’m not the only one who wants company this evening,” Dawn said wistfully.

“I can assure you, you are not.”

“You make it hard for a lady, you know that, General Raines?”

Ben fought back a chuckle, not quite succeeding in muffling his humor.

“Damnit! that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“You don’t like for people to get too close to you, do you, General?”

Ben smiled again in the darkness. The lady was no dummy; but then, he thought, she wouldn’t be a highly successful photojournalist if she was stupid. She had pegged him quickly enough. Either that or she had been observing his movements in camp closely for several months.

Maybe suspicious was right, Ben, he thought. Maybe you are.

“I’m not a kid, Ms. Bellever…”

“Dawn.”

“…Dawn, then. I’m past middle age. You’re what… not yet thirty?”

“That’s close enough,” she said evasively. “But what has age to do with it—unless, of course, you’re proposing to me.”

“I don’t believe I shall ever do that again,” Ben said flatly.

“Your wife was killed in the battle for Tri-States, right?”

“Yes. Salina. She and the unborn child. I also lost an adopted son, Jack. My adopted daughter, Tina, is… in another camp.”

“Gray’s Scouts,” Dawn said. And Ben was again amazed at the underground pipeline that ran through any military unit. There really were no secrets; just men and women who knew how to keep their mouths shut around people not of their stripe.

“We’ll be working very closely together, Dawn—for the next several months.”

“Yes.”

“So is this a good idea?”

“We’re both adults, aren’t we?”

He took her hand and together they walked around the fringes of the camp. And Dawn was one very surprised lady when Ben stopped in front of her tent.

“Good night, Ms. Bellever,” he said. He bent his head and kissed her mouth.

Before she could reply or respond, he was gone, the shape and form of him melting into the darkness.

She stood for a moment outside her tent. Then the humor of it all struck her. She laughed. “Shit!” she said.

“You’d better set your sights a bit lower, honey,” a woman’s voice spoke softly from the confines of the canvas. “That one is off-limits.”

“Says who?” Dawn said without turning around.

“Common sense,” another female voice cut through the darkness.

“If I had any common sense,” Dawn said, turning around, looking into the darkness of the big eight-person tent, “would I be here?”

The residents of Fort Wayne, Indiana—those that remained alive, that is—slowly put their guns on the ground and walked out to Hartline’s men. The mercenaries waited just past the northeastern city limits sign, on old Highway 37. Behind the rag-tag staggering knot of men and women, the city burned, dancing colors and dark plumes of smoke formed a kaleidoscope of tones against the sun, just rising above the horizon.

A mercenary pointed to a line of military trucks parked on the shoulder of the road. “Get in the trucks,” he ordered. Then his eyes found a very attractive teenage girl. “All but you,” he said with a grin. “You wait in the car over there,” he pointed.

“You leave my daughter alone,” a man spoke, his voice filled with exhaustion.

Hartline’s man looked at the father, the grin still on his lips. “All right,” he shouted to the fifty or so survivors of the shelling. “You people gather around me. I got something I want you all to hear.”

The men and women gathered in the road, lining up in ragged rows. Some kept their heads bowed, eyes downcast, defeated, beaten, whipped—no more fight left in them.

Others glared defiantly at the well-armed, well-trained mercenary army, surrender the farthest thing from their minds.

“All right, people,” the mercenary captain spoke, his words no longer harsh and demanding, taking on a gentler tone. “You may find this hard to believe, but I’m an American, just like you people. I was born in Havana, Illinois; and I don’t, repeat, don’t want any more killing.” He waved his free hand toward his men. “None of us do.”

“Okay, you folks hate us, fine, we can live with that. We’re soldiers, and we have a job of work to do, and we’re doing it, distasteful as it might be. And that job of work is to restore order to America.” He pointed to the greasy smoke filling the sky behind them. “There was no need for that. None at all. All your friends, your loved ones—they died for nothing.”

“They died for freedom!” a woman shouted.

The mercenary laughed. “Do you really believe that? If so, then you’ve been brainwashed. You people are being used—can’t you see that? Ben Raines is using you. That’s all he’s doing.”

“He’s going to free us!” the same woman shouted, her voice filled with conviction.

“Really?” the mercenary said, moving closer to the rows of defeated citizens. “Well… where is he? He’s got thousands of Rebels under his command. Why weren’t they here, fighting alongside you people? Why didn’t his guerrilla fighters come here, or up in Warsaw yesterday, or down in Marion or Muncie? You people are being tossed to the dogs and don’t even know it. Raines knows you people aren’t fighters; he knows you’re going to die—and he doesn’t care. He’s buying time, that’s all. Time.”

He shook his head sadly as he walked down the rows of citizens, some wounded, bloody. All tired, some so exhausted their legs trembled, threatening to tumble them to the road.

“How long has it been since you people had a good hot meal? A T-bone steak? A good cup of hot coffee? Well, you can bet Raines and his Rebels aren’t going hungry. They’re eating three squares every day! Sleeping soundly at night… while you people are starving and dying. Think about that for a while.”

He walked back to the teenager, waiting beside his car. Cleaned up, she would be very attractive. “What’s your name, honey?” he asked.

“Lisa.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had a good hot meal? Clean clothes? A nice bed with clean sheets on it?”

She was reluctant to answer.

“I won’t hurt you, Lisa. I promise,” the mercenary said with a smile. “Come on, tell me.”

“Long time,” she finally said.

“Would you like to have those things? I bet you have friends who would like to have them, too—right?”

She slowly nodded her head.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Please believe that.” He worked his best I’m-so-misunderstood-but-so-lovable expression onto his face. “I’m going to disobey orders and not take most of these folks to the camps. I think I can talk my way out of trouble. Now, here’s what I want you to do for me. I want you to get your friends together… young people of your age, and talk to them. These aren’t all the survivors, right?”

Her hesitation in replying told the mercenary captain he was right. He waited for her to tell him.

“No, sir,” she finally spoke.

“My name is Jake, Lisa. You call me Jake. Okay, now. I want you to get a couple of your buddies from the group that just surrendered, and I want you to go to your other friends, tell them about Ben Raines… what I just told you, and bring as many of them that will come with you back here.”

Her young-old-wise eyes grew suddenly dark with suspicion.

“Lisa… let me finish before you conclude I’m up to something no good, okay? Fine,” he said when she nodded her head. “Tell you what I’ll do just to prove to you I’m on the level. I’ll be the only one here—or anyplace you and your friends want to meet me. An open field, a warehouse—you name it, and I’ll be there, alone, waiting for you. I’ll be an easy target, Lisa; but I trust you, and I hope you trust me.”

It had been a long time since the teenager had found any reason to trust anyone not of her immediate peer group. But she found herself—to her amazement—trusting this tall, pale-eyed soldier.

“All right,” she said.

“Good! Good, Lisa.” He turned to a sergeant standing nearby. “Sergeant Staples, take the survivors to Decatur, see they are fed and their wounds taken care of. Give them shelter.”

“All of them, Captain?” the sergeant questioned, careful to phrase it so he would not be guilty of disobeying an order.

Captain Jake Devine looked at Lisa, then at the tired group of survivors. “Yes,” he said. “All of them. I want this fighting and killing to stop.”

When Jake turned to the girl, all suspicion was gone from her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, putting a hand on his muscular forearm.

“Trust me, Lisa,” Jake said. “That’s all I ask of you.”

“I… think I do, Jake.”

“Good. You won’t regret it, I promise. When can you meet me, and where?”

“Right here. In…” she looked at her watch “…five hours.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

When the survivors had been loaded onto the trucks, and Lisa and her two friends were gone, a mercenary walked up to Jake. “You slick-talkin’ bastard,” he said. “How do you do it, Jake?”

“I was raised in the church, Tony. It’s my life of clean living. Besides, wouldn’t you really rather fuck than fight?”

“Any day.”

“Okay. We just keep on doing it my way. Hartline don’t give a shit how it’s done—just as long as it gets done. It’s easier this way.”

“Damn sure can’t deny that,” the merc said. “How about them survivors we picked up down in Marion?”

“Why… Tony,” Jake smiled. “We’re their friends. Friends don’t hurt friends. Friends care for friends. Make sure they’re comfortable, have enough to eat, a warm place to sleep. In two weeks, Tony, they’ll spit in the face of Ben Raines. Bet on it.”

“You’ll get a promotion out of this, Jake.”

“Oh, I intend to get that, Tony. Don’t ever doubt it. Oh, and Tony? Those people we picked up from that cell in Kokomo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They are still isolated, aren’t they?”

“No one knows we got ’em.”

“Have you interrogated them fully?”

“I think we’ve gotten all we’re gonna get out of that bunch.”

“Well, after you get this group all settled in and comfy…” He paused to light a cigarette. “…take that bunch out and shoot them.”

Dawn had expected her first full day of work at the camp’s main CP to be uncomfortable—after the events of the previous night. But she found just the opposite to be true. General Raines was friendly, but not forward; he was the boss, but without being overbearing about it.

He fascinated her.

She had heard so many stories about the man: about how tough he was (he seemed like a pussycat to her); about how fierce he was (he was mending the broken wing of a bird when she reported for work that morning); all the whispered and rumored things about him just didn’t hold true in the presence of the man.

“Sleep well?” Ben asked.

“Fine, General. You?”

“Like a baby. You look very nice this morning, Ms. Bellever. What is that fragrance you’re wearing?”

She smiled. “Soap.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Soap. Perfume is rather a short commodity in this camp.”

“Umm,” Ben said. He handed her a list of things he wanted her to do and left the tent.

When she returned from her lunch break, there was a bottle of Shalimar sitting on her desk.

TWELVE

True to his word, Captain Jake Devine was standing alone, leaning against his car, parked on the shoulder of the highway. His M-10 was nowhere in sight; he wore only a holstered pistol at his side.

“You see,” Lisa said, smiling at Jake but directing her remark to the crowd of young people with her. “I told you he’d be here and be alone.”

“The ditches are probably full of government agents and mercenaries,” a young man said, looking furtively around him. “We’re probably all going to be taken and tortured.”

Jake laughed at this. He jerked his thumb toward the back seat of the car. “You young folks want a Coke?”

“A real Coke?” a young lady asked. “I mean, like a real Coke?”

“The real thing,” Jake said, chuckling. “But I bet you’re too young to remember that slogan.”

“I kinda remember it,” a young man said. “But it’s hazy-like.”

“Well, you young folks help yourselves to all the Coke and sandwiches you want. Then we’ll go wherever you want to go and talk about some things.”

“You serious, man?” a very pretty brunette asked. “You alone—with us; wherever we want to go?”

“You got it, young lady. You want my sidearm as a gesture of trust?”

“You’re joking, man!”

“No. I’m very serious.”

“All right!” the suspicious young man said. “Maybe you really are on the level after all.”

“I am. Go on,” Jake gestured to the car. “Eat and drink—I know you’re all probably famished.”

“You’re too much, Captain,” one of the older of the crowd said, taking in the captain’s bars on Jake’s shoulders. He was all of twenty-one. “You’re not like a government man at all.”

Jake’s smile was sad. “Some of the agents are a bit… shall we say, overzealous in the performance of their duties. If I had my way, I’d dismiss those men. But,” he shrugged, “it’s really no worse than Ben Raines’s people assassinating fifty FBI agents and then strapping them in the seats of an airplane, blood and guts and brains hanging out, and shipping them back to their wives and girlfriends and mothers and fathers. I think that is rather… gruesome, don’t you agree?”

“If he did it,” a young man said.

“Oh, he did it,” Jake replied. “I have the pictures of that… sight. I’ll be more than happy to show them to you.”

“Gross!” a young lady said. “I think I’ll pass, man.”

“Anytime you wish to see them.”

“Where do we go to talk?” Lisa asked.

Jake shrugged. “Anywhere you like.”

“Can I have another sandwich?” a boy asked.

“You smell very nice, Ms. Bellever,” Ben said, entering the tent.

“Thank you for the perfume, General.”

“You’re more than welcome.” His eyes drifted over her olive-drab-clad body, taking in all the curves. “I think you ladies must do something to those field clothes.”

“Guilty, sir. We take in a tuck here and there.”

“Very nicely done, Ms. Bellever. Keep up the good work…” He looked up as Cecil entered the tent.

“Bad news, Ben.”

“Oh?”

“It appears Hartline has changed tactics in the field. We’ve lost the entire northern half of Indiana. Some mercenary by the name of Jake Devine is in command, and he must be one smooth talker.”

“Captain Jake Albert Devine,” Ben said, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve read intelligence reports on him—back when the Tri-States existed. The young folks love him; and you can just bet ol’ Jake is popping the cock to a number of young girls. He likes that teenage pussy.”

Cecil glanced at Dawn and was embarrassed at Ben’s vulgarity. “Uh… Ben,” he said.

“Oh. Excuse me, Ms. Bellever,” Ben said. “I’ll try to watch my language.”

She laughed at the expression on Cecil’s face. “Colonel Jefferys—have you ever been around a bunch of reporters when they’re drinking?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Bellever.”

“They aren’t exactly priests and nuns, I can assure you both of that. Do you want me to leave, General, so you and Colonel Jefferys can speak in private?”

“No. You’ll be handling supersensitive papers and decoding messages while you’re working here. There is no reason at all for you to leave.” He looked at Cecil. “It doesn’t surprise me, Cecil. The people just didn’t have it in them to fight. Doctor Chase warned me this might well be the case. I was wrong in placing too much hope with civilians. They just want to work and be left alone. Can’t blame them for that. Have you talked with Ike about this?”

“Mentioned it to him. Told him I was coming here, and that you’d probably want to hash this over with the other field commanders.”

“Get hold of them. We’ll meet at 0800 in the morning. Put everybody on low alert. There is a chance we’ll be pulling out very soon.”

Dawn felt her heart quicken its pace. Game time, or so it looked, was just about over. Now it was down to, as Jimmy Brady put it, “fish or cut bait.”

Cecil left the tent and Ben glanced at Dawn. “Getting scared, Ms. Bellever?”

“I’d be lying if I said no.”

“Only a fool isn’t afraid of combat, Ms. Bellever. It is the most mind-boggling, terrifying, gut-wrenching sensation a human being will experience.”

“I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything, General.”

“Unfortunately, Ms. Bellever, sometimes a man becomes inured to the worst of the combat. The fear comes after the battle.”

“I… see.”

“No, you don’t, Ms. Bellever. But you will, I’m afraid.”

Ben rose to leave and she touched his arm. “General… last night. I mean, I rather enjoyed it.”

His smile touched her in very intimate places. “I rather enjoyed it, too, Ms. Bellever.”

“Would I be forward if I asked that we do it again sometime?”

He laughed. “Ah, the liberated ladies of the latter part of this century. Would you have dinner with me this evening, Ms. Bellever?”

“I would love to, General—on one condition.”

“And that is?”

“Would you please stop calling me Ms.?”

Ben laughed and left the tent without replying.

“So you see,” Jake said, “this is, as Shakespeare put it, much ado about nothing. All the government wants is for people to get back to work and get this nation rolling again. Then maybe I can go back to Illinois and get back to farming.”

Lisa and the others laughed at that. “Man,” the brunette said, “I just can’t imagine you plowing a field.”

I’ll plow your field before too many more days, honey, Jake thought. “Oh, it’s true, dear. Believe it. I was raised on a farm.”

“Why did you become a mercenary for Lowry?” he was asked.

“Because I believe in a United States,” he was quick to reply. “I was a professional soldier before the big war of ‘88, and for a few years after that. I got hurt and had to get out of the regular army. This way, I can still serve my country.”

“May we speak frankly, Captain Devine?” the brunette asked.

“As frankly as you wish,” she was answered with a smile and a gentle wink. “I am very interested in your views and comments. Anything to get this fighting a thing of the past.”

“What do you want from us?”

“I want you all to come with me to the holding camp down in Decatur and over in Logansport. I want you to bring a camera—or I’ll supply you with one—and take all the pictures you want. Talk to every person there. I want you all to see that everyone there is being well-fed and cared for; they have, if not nice, at least comfortable living quarters; and that no one—repeat no one—is or has been tortured in any way, shape, form, or fashion.”

“But all the rumors…?” a young lady said.

Jake brushed them off. “Lies. Dirty lies from the Rebels’ camp. Come with me—I’ll prove it to you all.”

The young people looked at Lisa; she nodded her head minutely. She received an answering nod in the affirmative.

“Great!” Jake beamed. “Lisa, you ride with me. You other young people can take those two station wagons over there,” he pointed, “and follow us. You’re all going to be very pleasantly surprised.”

He could not conceal his smile as he held the door for Lisa.

Nice tits, he thought.

Dawn could not hide her smile as they carried their meal trays from the mess tent back to Ben’s quarters. She said, “I thought the brass always had better food than the enlisted people?”

“Not in this army,” Ben told her. “And it shouldn’t be that way in any army. However,” he smiled, “I do have this bottle of wine that should make the meal a bit more palatable.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Picked it up on the way here from Wyoming. You’re not going to believe me when I show it to you.”

“My God, Ben!” she blurted, after they had placed their trays on the table and Ben opened his trunk and removed the bottle of wine. “That’s a Rothchild.”

“1955. Wonder if that was a good year?”

They tasted the wine after clinking glasses.

“Excellent,” Ben said. “Should go right with this SOS we’re having.”

Dawn looked at her plate of dried beef in gravy over biscuits. “Why is it called SOS?”

“The initials for which it stands,” Ben said with a smile, knowing very well what was next.

“What does SOS mean?” She took a small tentative bite. “Oh, this is good!”

“Shit on shingle.”

She dropped her fork. “You’re kidding!”

“I think it’s been called that since World War Two. Maybe further back than that. But it’s tasty and hot and really, I suppose, rather good for one.”

“We’ll let that one be you,” Dawn pushed her plate from her. “I’ll just have a little salad and some wine.”

“Plenty of wine,” Ben spoke around a mouthful of SOS. “I pinched a case.”

Her eyes widened. “A whole case of Rothchild ‘55?”

“A whole case, dear.”

“This is going to be a memorable evening.” Her eyes lifted to touch his across the table.

“I hope so,” he said quietly.

“I just can’t believe it,” Lisa said. She had bathed in the first hot water she’d seen in two weeks, and Jake had rounded up some genuine Levi’s for her (which the young lady filled out very well) and a western shirt and good sturdy shoes.

“What is it you can’t believe, dear?” Jake took her small hand and guided her slowly toward his quarters at the holding area for survivors of the government crackdown on dissidents.

Lisa rather liked the feel of his strong hand holding hers and the way their hips sometimes touched as they walked. She knew what was coming—what he probably had in mind for her; but the thought was not disturbing to her. Jake had been true to his word right down the line: Lisa had not eaten so well in… she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a rib-eye; Jake had given her some nice clothes; her friends had a nice place to sleep and some of the same good food. All in all, she mused, it won’t be a bad trade-off.

Like most young ladies her age, fifteen to twenty, Lisa had only vague memories of the big war of ‘88. But she, like so many others, had bitter memories of the struggle for survival since the bombings: never enough food or warm clothing; never enough money to buy nice things; the constant threat of being attacked by roaming gangs of hoodlums.

“Oh,” Lisa said, “everything I’ve seen the past few hours. The nice treatment the people are receiving; the good food… everything. I just… I mean, it’s so hard for me to believe Ben Raines and his people are lying to us. But I see now that they are. It’s… it hurts, kind of.”

“I know, dear,” his voice was deep and comforting in the dusk of evening. “But I won’t lie to you—I promise you that.”

They had reached his quarters. She stood quietly while he opened the door. He looked at the teenager and she returned the frank stare.

“You’ll be sure I have enough to eat and pretty clothes to wear?” she asked.

“I can promise you that, Lisa.”

She stepped inside and the door closed behind her.

Dawn slept with one arm flung across Ben’s naked chest, her breasts warm against him, the soft down of her pubic area pressing against his thigh. October winds were blowing cool across the huge park, and the blanket which covered them felt warm against bare flesh.

They were both adults, the days of groping and grappling long past them. It had been a silent, mutual consenting, with neither one of them in any great rush for completion.

For the first time, it had been almost perfect, for they had talked of likes and dislikes in sexual preferences before anything began.

Her body had been leaner and harder than the pictorials in the magazines, but that served only to make her more mature, at least in Ben’s eyes.

Ben looked at her in the dim light in the isolated tent. She was deep in sleep. Easing his way from her warmth, he quietly dressed and slipped outside. He looked toward Ike’s tent and caught the red glow of a cigar. He walked toward the glow, checking the luminous hands of his watch as he walked. Ten o’clock. The camp area was very quiet.

“Evenin,’ El Presidente,” Ike said. And Ben knew the man was grinning.

“The camp is unusually quiet for ten o’clock,” Ben said, squatting down beside his friend.

“Rumors fly, ol’ buddy. Folks have decided we’re probably pulling out very soon; need their rest.”

Ben lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before replying. “They’re probably right,” he finally spoke.

“I’m gonna give you some advice, ol’ buddy,” Ike said. “Take it or leave it. I know your guts must be in a knot about Tina joinin’ Gray’s Scouts and about Hazen’s suggestion of a suicide run against Lowry. Well, I’ve been doin’ some thinkin’ ‘bout that.” He sighed. “I just don’t think Lowry’s the top rooster in the hen house. Not anymore… if he ever was. I think a move against him wouldn’t help us at all.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. But every indication points to Lowry being the brains behind Logan. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t. I believe he was. But couldn’t there have been a silent third man just as well? Some invisible third party who was the real brains?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know; I don’t even know if there is one. A gut hunch tells me there is. Probably a person we would never suspect.” Again, he sighed. “Anyway, it’s moot now, isn’t it, Ben?”

“Yes. At least for a time.”

“We’re moving out tomorrow, aren’t we?”

“Yes. We’ve tried arming the people, hoping they would find the courage and the brains to help us. That failed. We can’t just stay here forever.”

“Ben… we could just turn our backs to the problem. Go on back to the Tri-States, or set up somewhere else.”

“Sooner or later, Ike, we’d have to fight—you know that. Might as well get it done now and get it over with.”

“I agree, Ben. But I had to point out the options. Ms. Hickman?”

“What about her?”

“What happens to her?”

“She goes with us.”

“Ms. Olivier?”

Ben thought for a moment. “When we move, we’re going to be hitting hard and fast. TV viewing is going to be limited. Besides, I think Hartline is stringing Ms. Olivier along. We’ll give it another week. It’ll take us that long to map out plans and pull out of the mountains.”

“And what happens after a week?”

Ben looked at him. “We send someone in to get Ms. Olivier and daughter.”

“Suppose she doesn’t want to go?”

“I think,” Ben’s words were soft, “that in a week she’ll be more than ready to leave Richmond.”

“Premonition?”

Ben shook his head. “I just know Hartline’s reputation.”

THIRTEEN

The sergeants were rolling out the troops at dawn the following morning, shouting out orders. The troops responded like the well-oiled machines their instructors had made them.

At 0800, Ben’s field commanders showed up for the scheduled meeting. Ben had not informed them of the pull-out, and was pleased to see smiles on all their faces at the sudden activity in Base Camp One.

Ben shook hands all around, General Hazen saying, “Made your mind up, eh, Ben?”

“We’re going to pull out gradually, Bill. Over a week’s time. Let’s start hashing out what’s what and how and when.”

“How, is easy,” Hector Ramos said. “We kick ass. I’ve been giving some thought to where.”

“That’s what we’re here for, gentlemen,” Ben said, leading them to his big tent. He sent out for some coffee and was amused at the looks the officers gave Dawn.

“I swear I’ve seen her before,” Conger said.

“Me, too,” Hector echoed. “Damn, she looks familiar to me.”

“Dawn Bellever,” Ben said softly, a smile playing around his mouth.

“Ahh!” Conger said.

“Bello, bello,” Hec said with a smile and a waggling movement of his fingers.

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” General Krigel asked.

Conger told him.

Krigel looked at the retreating derriere of Dawn. “No shit!” he said.

Work halted briefly outside the tent as laughter erupted from inside.

“What’s going on there?” a dark-haired, small young woman asked Dawn.

“Damned if I know. Dawn Bellever.” She stuck out her hand.

“Rosita O’Brien.” The women shook hands. “I’m with Colonel Ramos’s detachment. Sounds like the brass is having a stag party in there.”

“That… very well may be true. Boys being what they are.” She had a pretty good idea what the men were laughing about.

“I heard that. What’s going on, Dawn? Why all the commotion?”

Dawn opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “Beats me.”

Rosita laughed. “Okay, I get it. Well, I’ll get the word in time.”

“Come on,” Dawn took the woman’s arm. “Walk with me to the mess tent.”

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.”

“No, I’ve got to get some coffee for the brass.”

Rosita stopped dead in her tracks. “I’m no goddamn delivery person.” The fire in her eyes was a smoldering emerald green. “And neither are you; you’re a soldier, remember?”

“Sure. I also remember something else, as well.”

“Oh?” the little Irish-Spanish lady stood with hands on hips. “What’s that?”

“Ben said he wanted some coffee.”

“Ben? Oh… I see. I think.” Her face brightened. “Some people get all the luck. Come on, let’s get that coffee. I have a million questions I’d like to ask you.”

“If they’re about General Raines, forget it.”

“Aw, come on, Dawn! We’re on the same team, aren’t we?”

“Sure,” Dawn’s reply was dry, then she joined in Rosita’s laughter.

Hartline ignored the girl’s pleadings and shifted her into another position. “That’s my little fox, now,” he laughed. “Isn’t this way all better?”

She sobbed her reply.

“Oh? Well… let’s do it this way, then.” He grinned as he took her, his grin broadening as Nancy Olivier’s cries filled the bedroom. She jerked under his assault and tried to pull away. His hands held her, clamped tightly on her shoulders and he bulled his way inside her. “You just hang on, now, baby—it’ll start gettin’ good in a minute or so. Ol’ Sam Hartline guarantees it.”

The girl groaned as his manhood filled her.

“Yes, indeed,” Hartline laughed. “Won’t momma be surprised?”

“Okay,” Jake Devine spoke to the roomful of young people. “This is what I want you folks to do: Now you’ve all seen the treatment your friends are receiving; you’ve seen that the talk of mistreatment and torture is nothing but a pack of lies. So I want you all to spread the word in the towns I’ve given you. Tell the folks no harm will come to any of them. All they have to do is lay down their arms and go back to work. My people will come through and gather up the guns and they won’t see us again. That’s a promise. Now I’ve given you cases of food and clothing for the people—you young folks distribute them as evenly as possible; be sure the old folk get enough to eat and warm clothing and medicine. That’s all, kids—take off.”

Lisa was still in his quarters, sleeping. Jake watched the young people file out to the cars and trucks waiting for them. They were well-fed, wore new clothing, and had sidearms belted around their waists.

“I gotta hand it to you, Jake,” a lieutenant said, walking up to him. “This way is a hell of a lot better than shooting it out with the citizens. Do you think it’ll work?”

“Slicker than an ol’ redbone hound. Kindness always works better than force.”

“Fine-lookin’ little gal you picked out for yourself, too.”

“You like her? Hell, John. Soon as we move from this area into Illinois, I’ll give her to you, then you can pass her around when you get tired of the same old snatch.”

“How about the ones we’re holding now—that bunch from Huntington?”

“How are they responding to the talks?”

“Very well. We have the few diehards separated from those who just want to go back home and forget all about fighting the government.”

“Okay. Send those back home.”

“What about those we couldn’t brainwash?”

Jake looked at him. “Shoot them.”

Ben looked at the message just handed him. He gritted his teeth and swore, loud and long. When he had exhausted his profane vocabulary, he looked at Conger.

“Move your people out of here this afternoon. Block all the bridges leading from Indiana into Kentucky, starting at Madison. Pull some extra personnel from General Krigel’s troops. We’ve got to write off Indiana. We’ve lost it. I don’t want the same shit to happen in Kentucky.” He glanced at Cecil. “Radio Captain Gray. Tell him to start a guerrilla movement, working east. I want a terror campaign against all federal police, effective immediately. General Krigel, your people will have the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. General Hazen, take Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Hector, North and South Carolina. My bunch will move in behind Major Conger and secure Kentucky, then move into Virginia.”

Ben looked at his commanders. “Hit hard, hit fast, and make it brutal. If they work for the government of the United States… they have two choices, either quit, or die. Any questions?”

“Kick-ass time,” Hector said, getting to his feet.

The men filed from the tent. In exactly nineteen hours the second civil war in one hundred and thirty-eight years would rock the nation, eleven years after the world had exploded in nuclear and germ warfare. It was a testimony to the desire of men and women who wished to live free: free of government constraints, free of government bureaucracy, free of crime, free to live their own lives free of fear of the central government.

Free.