William W. Johnstone (16 page)

Nineteen

 

“The man’s plan might have some merit,” Khamsin’s aides told him.

“Perhaps,” Colonel Khamsin said. “It is for a fact that Ben Raines must be removed. With him out of the way, we will have no opposition; nothing standing in our way of total takeover.”

“Do you suppose the man is telling the truth?”

“Yes,” Khamsin said after a moment of thought. “I think he is. I believe him. But” – he held up a warning finger – “we must move slowly and with much caution. We must think this out very carefully.”

“Perhaps it would be best to wait,” another aide suggested.

“Why?” Khamsin asked.

“Let the fight go uninterrupted in the west. Let Raines and the Russian thin their ranks during the war. That would help us.”

“Yes,” Khamsin agreed. “But we need to have people out there, watching. Have you sent out patrols as I requested?” That was directed to a young woman.

“Yes, sir. They reported back that they are halfway to their objective.”

“Very good. Keep the man in camp. Give him new clothing and food and lodgings. Give him a woman for entertainment. Watch him at all times. Be friendly, but firm. Let’s move on to more pressing matters. How are the farms looking?”

“Excellent, Colonel.”

“The people working them?”

“We’ve had … ah, some trouble with a few of them.”

“And? …”

“We shot them.”

“And now?”

“The rest seem to have accepted their fate and are falling into line quite well.”

“Resistance groups?”

“A few. We’re eliminating them one by one.”

“See that you get them all. Quickly. Do not let them spread,” Khamsin ordered. “Rebellion must be crushed brutally and swiftly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

But Khamsin, along with the other terrorists who made up his army, forgot one little item: This was America. Battered, bruised, on her knees, but not yet down for the count. Americans have always been stubborn types, slow to anger, but when angered, many Americans have a tendency to shove back when shoved; to reach for a gun when all else fails – or sometimes before anything else is tried.

More resistance groups than the Islamic Peoples Army thought were forming. They were forming along the borders of Georgia and Florida and North Carolina.

Under the direct command of teams of Rebels from North Georgia. From Ben Raines’s Base Camp One. They were getting training in guerrilla warfare and the use of automatic weapons.

And their ranks were growing; slowly, but steadily.

They were not yet strong enough to make any major moves against the IPA. But soon, they hoped. Soon.

Striganov stood before a wall map of territory controlled – or once controlled – by his people.

Damn! he silently cursed.

How does one stop the silent wind? he thought.

Then he shook his head. Stupid! he berated himself. Silly and childish to compare Ben Raines with the wind. The man is a mere mortal.

A chill touched him lightly.

Or is he?

This time the Russian was successful in pushing that thought from him. He more closely studied the map.

He began replacing tiny red flags with blue ones, denoting territory lost to Raines and his Rebels.

Great God! That many?

“Yes,” he muttered.

Everything south of Highway 20 was now in Rebel hands. And informants near Santa Rosa reported that one Rebel commander just brazenly drove his column right through the city and up to that settlement of malcontents outside the city.

No doubt that arrogant John Dunning and his people would be linking up with the Rebels.

More problems.

Striganov had felt from the outset that those silos held nothing but rusting, inoperable missiles. But he would not take the one-in-a-million chance that they contained the real thing. The Russian would not risk more radiation in the air. He felt John Dunning was bluffing.

But? …

The alternative was unthinkable.

With a sigh, he turned away from the map and sat back down behind his desk.

He rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. Where in the hell was Ben Raines now?

“They’ve pulled out, General,” a recon patrol reported back to Ben. “Chico, Paradise, and Oroville IPF outposts are abandoned.”

“Did they leave anything behind?” Ben radioed.

“Looks like they left behind a lot, General. They seemed to be in quite a hurry to clear out.”

“The civilians?”

A short pause. “Pretty well beat down, General.”

“I’m on my way.” Ben handed the mike back to the radio operator and checked his maps. About an hour’s drive down to Chico. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

Chico had once been a progressive little city of about thirty thousand. Now, to Ben’s eyes, it appeared that no more than three to four hundred people survived.

And they were a sad-looking lot.

“Jesus!” Ben muttered, his eyes taking in the dirty, ragged, and woebegone-looking bands of men and women. They stood in silence, staring at the Rebels through eyes sunk deep into their heads.

Sylvia and Lora sat in the back of the Jeep, Ben on the passenger side, front seat, his Thompson in his lap, muzzle pointed to the outside.

“What is it with these people out here, General?” his driver asked. “The survivors in the midwest and the south act … well,
different.”

“How do you mean, Chuck?” Ben knew what he meant, but he wanted the young man to put his thoughts into words.

“Well, you take those folks we found in Missouri and Tennessee and Georgia and Arkansas. They were fightin’ the IPF with everything they had available. Many of them chose death over slavery. It’s just … different out here.”

“But yet Ike reports a large colony of people south of here who stood up to the Russian,” Ben reminded the young man.

“Yes, sir. But how many of those kind have
we
seen?”

“It’s about fifty-fifty, Chuck.”

“That don’t tell me the why of it, though.”

“It’s all in how you’re raised, Chuck. States – back when we had states that resisted the government’s attempts to disarm the citizens. They fought, sometimes violently, the move toward gun control. But others advocated the disarming of citizens. I remember reading about a man here in California who killed a rattlesnake in his front yard. Killed it with a gun. The courts ordered him arrested and fined him.”

“Are you serious, General?”

“Sure am. I came down pretty hard on Harry Reed the other day. Maybe I shocked him enough for him to survive, but I doubt it. Harry was brainwashed. Since he was old enough to watch TV or read a newspaper, he was bombarded with people saying things like it’s society’s fault that we have criminals, that guns are evil and the death penalty is wrong.”

“General,” Chuck said. “Good people don’t steal things. Assholes steal things.”

“You and I know that,” Ben said. “How old were you when the bombs came, Chuck?”

“Eleven, I think, sir.”

“And you’ve blocked out most of the horror, right, Chuck?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben nodded. Many of those he’d spoken with had done the same. Ben didn’t blame them. Sometimes he wished he could.

“Pull over there to our patrol,” Ben said, pointing at a Jeep parked curbside, a group of men and women gathered around it.

“Probably beggin’ for food,” Chuck muttered. “Goddamn, are they helpless?”

“No,” Ben said.

“Then they’re fools.”

“Foolish, at the very least,” Ben agreed in part.

Ben sat in his Jeep and looked at the people, standing silently, looking at him. They knew who he was, and Ben could sense the mixture of fear and resentment emanating from them, directed toward him.

Why him and not me? drifted the silent vibes.

“Well, the big bad wolf is gone,” Ben shattered the silence. “Now what are you going to do?”

A man broke from the crowd and walked up to Ben. “Are your people going to stay and help us?”

Ben checked his temper and bit back a smart-assed reply.

“No,” he said with a sigh. “That’s doubtful at this time.”

“Then what are we going to do?” the man asked.

“How about helping yourselves?” Ben offered.

“Give us the means and we will,” the man said. Hope for them yet, Ben thought. “What’s your name?”

“George Williams. You’re Ben Raines?”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“Guns,” George said, a firmness in his voice.

Ben waved one of the recon team over to his Jeep. When he spoke, it was as if George was not present. “These people know anything about guns, Jimmy?”

“From what they told me, General, no.”

Ben arched an eyebrow. He looked at George. “Yeah, George. You can have your guns and ammo.”

“But you and your people are not going to stay and help us, are you?”

“Not at this time, no.”

“General, can I tell you something?”

“Sure. It’s still a free country. What’s left of it.”

“General, we both hold vastly different political views. As you have a right to yours, I have a right to mine.”

“That’s right, George.”

Ben thought of another George, the civilian he’d met briefly back in Red Bluff and left in charge. That George had been tough and capable looking, not willing to be enslaved by any person. Ben had left him in charge.

He looked at the recon man. “Don’t waste too much time on them.”

“Yes, sir.”

He told Jimmy, “Let’s get out of here.”

Twenty

 

“Now both them girlies is dead,” an outlaw reported to Sonny Boy. He cocked his dirty head to one side and stared at the warlord. “I thought you was gonna keep that woman Rebel for yourself?”

“Too damn much trouble,” the warlord grunted his reply. “Ever’ time I wanted to stuck it up her ass I had to pract’ally whup her half to death. It wasn’t worth it. I’m gettin’ bored, Snake. All this doin’ nothing is makin’ me edgy. You?”

“Yeah. How come Hartline don’t just cut us loose and let us go kick the ass off of Raines and them Rebels?”

Sonny Boy shook his head. “I don’t know. All that shit we’ve heard about Raines and them people of his’n don’t add up to what I’ve seen about them. I think Raines is runnin’ a bluff. That’s what I think.”

“You think we could take ‘em, Sonny Boy?” Snake asked.

“Hell, yes! Snake, you go get the rest of the boys on the horn. We gonna have us a sit-down. And I don’t give a shit whether Hartline likes it or not.”

But before Snake could turn away, a shout came from the gang’s radio operator. “Popeye’s on the horn, Sonny Boy! Wants to talk to you. Says it’s important.”

“Comin’!” What the hell? he thought.

Sonny Boy listened through the headset, his face first paling, then turning red, as anger overrode shock. “Yeah,” he said. “We can’t have no more of that shit. You right. Look, you call Skinhead and I’ll call Grizzly. We’ll have us a meet tomorrow at noon.” His eyes lifted to a dirty map tacked to the wall. “We’ll meet at old Fort Klamath. Yeah. I’m with you, Popeye. Looks like it’s gonna be up to us to kick the ass off Raines and his people. Right. Is Daddy gonna make it?”

He listened for a moment longer, then signed off.

“What’s up, Boss?” an outlaw called Grease asked. He scratched at his lice-infested crotch.

“Some of Popeye’s boys was out on the prowl two, three days ago. They come up on some little pussy. Twelve, thirteen years old. They got her down when some more little cunts showed up. Seems like these little girlies done killed them boys that wasn’t bangin’ the kid. They killed Bird and Big Dave, and then cut the pecker off of Daddy. Closed the wound with a hot blade and left him.”

“Jesus!” Grease said.

“Get me Grizzly on the horn. We’re all gonna have a sit-down tomorrow at noon. I’ll take the lieutenants with me. Rest of you guys hang tough.”

“You reckon them that done it to Popeye’s boys is out of Ben Raines’s people?” an outlaw asked.

“Hell, yes. And I’m tired of fuckin’ around with Raines and his bunch. We’re gonna settle this thing once and for all. Kick his ass back east of the Muddy.”

“We can do it, too!” an outlaw called Tony said.

“Damn right!” Snake said.

“I sure would like to find them girlies that done it,” Sonny Boy said dreamily. “I like to listen to little girlies holler. We could have us some fun with them.”

One member of Striganov’s IPF was definitely not having any fun with Sandra, Judy, and Kim. His fun days were over. His heart still pumped blood, but the blood was gushing out of the knife-inflicted wound in his throat. His friends were spread-eagled on the cracking concrete of the old highway, their weapons stacked to one side.

The recon patrol had been returning to their Oregon base when they came up on a half-dozen boys and girls trying to make it out of IPF-controlled territory. The recon members had had their fun with the girls, and were sodomizing the youngest boy when the trio of woods-children suddenly charged out of the timber by the side of the road.

Twelve-year-old Judy looked at the ragged bunch of children. Her young-old eyes flicked from one to the other. No weapons except for an empty knife sheath on one boy’s belt. “Where’s you kids goin?” she asked.

“Runnin’.” A boy said. He appeared to be the oldest. Maybe fourteen years old.

“Runnin’
where?”

“Just gettin’ out,” a girl said. She was trying to cover her nakedness with the torn rags of clothing ripped from her by the IPF men.

“How come y’all ain’t got no guns?” Kim asked.

“There ain’t no guns to be had,” the girl said. “We looked, too.”

“You didn’t look very good,” Sandra said. “You got to know where to look.”

The girl started crying.

Judy walked to her and slapped her across the face, rocking her head. “Shut up,” Judy said. “That don’t do no good. You oughta know that by now. If you ain’t tough, you better get tough. If you don’t, you’re gonna die out here. You wanna cry, do it at night, where nobody can see or hear you. That’s the way it’s gotta be.”

The children looked at the gun-toting twelve-year-old with shock in their eyes. They had, to a person, never seen anything like this tough little girl.

“I don’t know what the hell to do with you, ya’ll,” Judy said. “We can’t take you with us; but you don’t act like you can survive by yourselves.”

“We can survive!” a girl said hotly.

“I don’t know how,” Judy said, looking at her, standing there crying. “You ain’t got no weapons. And to me, that means you ain’t got no smarts.”

Kim and Sandra let Judy carry the verbal ball.

“You trust adults,” Judy said. “That’s a bad mistake. If they ain’t wearin’ tiger-stripe or lizard cammies, you can’t trust ‘em. You can trust the underground people, but the odds are, they’ve seen you but you ain’t seen them.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.” One of the IPF recon team chose that time to leap to his feet and attempt to run. Judy shot him in the back, severing his spine. The man fell to the broken concrete and lay still.

Judy turned her eyes back to the kids. “You got names?”

Larry was the youngest boy. Eight years old.

Mary was the girl she’d been speaking to. Twelve years old. The girl’s shirt was torn open. No buttons.

“Your first time?” Judy asked.

Mary shook her head.

“Then you oughta know you ain’t gonna die from it. But you’re stupid tryin’ to fight them. You fight them, and they’ll hurt you real bad or kill you. Give it to them then wait it out ‘til you get a chance to run.”

Lisa was twelve. Already her breasts were as full as a grown woman’s. She was shapely with a grown woman’s face and body.

“You in trouble right off,” Judy told her. “Wear loose shirts so’s the men can’t see how big you are. And get jeans that’s too big for you. Cut that long hair off. Try to make yourself ugly. If you don’t, you gonna get jumped everytime you turn around.”

Lisa started crying.

Rich was the oldest. Fourteen. But small for his age. He was scared, and looked it.

“You just left some city or town, didn’t you?” Judy asked him.

Rich nodded.

“I figured it. You don’t know nothin’ about stayin’ alive, do you?”

“My parents just got taken away from me. By the IPF. I don’t know where they were taken. They hid me in the basement.”

“You’ll never see them again,” Judy said bluntly. “So forget them. I can’t even hardly remember mine. and if you tune up and start blubberin’, I’m gonna knock the crap outta you.”

Rich tightened his face, holding back tears.

“You gotta get tough, boy,” Judy told him. “Or die. I bet your parents protected you, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They didn’t do you no favors, boy. But you hang around with us, you’ll grow up fast.”

Ann was thirteen; looked younger than that.

Carol was twelve. Pretty and very innocent looking, with blond hair and big blue eyes.

Judy walked over to Kim and Sandra.

“What are we gonna do with them, girls?”

“They got crap for brains,” Sandra said. “They could get us killed.”

“Do you vote to leave them?” Judy asked.

“Naw,” Sandra said. “I wouldn’t feel right doin’ that.”

Judy looked at Kim.

Kim shrugged. “Hell, we can’t leave them. But Lisa’s gonna get us in trouble. I just know it. You all know how men feel about big-titted girls.”

“Rich ain’t got no guts,” Judy said.

“Maybe he just ain’t found them yet,” Kim offered. “His momma and daddy kept him safe. Hell, it’s his ass, girls. He’ll either grow up or get dead.”

Judy shook her head. “A big-titted kid and a boy with no guts. They’ve all been protected, all their lives. Okay, we all voted to go forward for Ben Raines. If we do that, we got to take them with us.”

Sandra stepped out of the tight group and tossed a knife to Rich. The knife sparked on the concrete.

“Pick it up and cut his throat,” Sandra nodded at the IPF man.

“Me?” Rich asked.

“I ain’t talkin’ to the goddamn road, boy,” Sandra told him.

Rich backed away from the big-bladed knife. “I can’t do it.”

Lisa bent down, picked up the knife, and walked to the spread-eagled IPF man. She grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back. Bending down, she sliced open his throat, then dropped the knife and threw up on the concrete.

The woods-children looked at each other. An unspoken message passed between them.

Lisa would do.

Watch Rich.

Kim lifted her AK and finished the remaining IPF members. She slung her AK and said, “Let’s go.”