William W. Johnstone (18 page)

Twenty-three

 

The Rebels waited and rested. They cleaned equipment, spent hours pouring over maps of territory assigned them once they were inside IPF-controlled territory. They waited for word from Ben Raines to strike.

But there was only silence from Ben.

The men and women of the Rebels would see him at the most unexpected times and places. Always with Lora with him, sometimes with Sylvia. Sylvia no longer shared Ben’s blankets. No one knew what had happened between them to cool the brief affair, and no one was going to ask the general. Lora, who stayed with two Rebel women at night, had nothing to say on the matter; the child could be as taciturn as Ben.

The outlaw warlords had yet to make their appearance. If any of them had the sense God allowed an idiot, they would have turned around and headed east, putting as much distance between themselves and Cecil Jefferys and his people as time would let them. For years the outlaws had called the tune as they rampaged about the ravaged and torn land, killing and raping and maiming and torturing at will. There simply had been no organized force large enough to stop them.

Most of the survivors still clung – as Ben and his Rebels were constantly being reminded – to the concept of law and order that had died with the nation.

In other words, they were waiting for someone else to do it for them.

That someone had arrived, in force.

Now, all the outlaws had to do was tangle with that force. Just one time.

“Contact has been successfully made,” Colonel Khamsin was informed.

“And? …” the colonel asked.

The aide shrugged expressively.

“Don’t give me gestures!” Khamsin berated him. “Speak to me.”

“The persons contacted were very interested. But they must have some time to think about it.”

“How much time?”

“Our radio contact was brief, Colonel. That was not discussed.”

“Very well. What else?”

“Our scouts’ report confirmed any fears we may have had concerning Ben Raines and his Rebels. They are well-trained, highly disciplined, extremely well-armed, motivated, and quite large in numbers.”

“How large?”

The aide sighed. Dealing with Khamsin was, at times, difficult. “The Rebels are spread out over a large area, Colonel. There are several thousand Rebels in the west. At least a battalion left in reserve up in what was once known as Georgia. About a company of Rebels helping to train resistance fighters on the borders that surround our territory. Four or five thousand Rebels in all. And that is not counting the underground people and various other civilian groups aligned with Ben Raines. We have no way of knowing how many those might be.”

“What else did Hartline have to say?” Khamsin did not fully understand these underground people or what they represented. But he felt that anyone who lived in caves and tunnels could not amount to very much. So he dismissed them.

“He laughed a lot, so our scouts reported.”

“That would be like Sam.”

“Is the man a fool?”

“Hardly. Just very arrogant.”

“Hartline said he could put Ben Raines in a box anytime he wanted to. He refused to elaborate on that.”

“That also would be like Sam. And it also might mean he does not have
any
plan. With Sam Hartline, one must always be very careful. He can speak with glibness out of both sides of his mouth.”

“The mercenary is demanding a great deal, Colonel.”

“Now we get to it. Well, speak.”

“A state.”

“Hartline wants an entire
state!”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“What state?”

“He says he’ll think about that and let you know. He said to tell you to …” The aide hesitated.

“To tell me what?”

“To keep your britches on. He’ll get back to you.” The aide waited for Khamsin’s explosion.

Khamsin leaned back in his chair and laughed. “How very much like Sam. It is good to know he has not changed over the years. He is still an unscrupulous bastard.”

“Can he be trusted, Colonel?”

“No. But in this particular matter, he will do what he says.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because there is no other force on earth, that I know of, larger and stronger than ours. Sam Hartline fell in with the Russian because he believed the Russian had the manpower to defeat this Ben Raines. Hartline obviously now believes that Raines will defeat the Russian. Hartline
always
wants the winning side. As long as we remain victorious, Hartline will keep his word.”

“Hartline, it is reported, has a very powerful group of mercenaries behind him.”

“No doubt.”

“We wait?”

“What else can we do?”

“We can kick the ass off that bunch of pussies,” Skinhead said. He lowered his binoculars and looked at the other warlords.

“Sure looks that way,” Popeye said, his eyes bugging out. He flapped his crooked arms like a vulture.

Grizzly and Sonny Boy exchanged glances. “Maybe not,” Grizzly said.

“What’d you mean?” Popeye asked.

“Looks too easy,” Sonny Boy told him.

“I think it’s a setup,” Grizzly stuck in his two cents’ worth. Some native warning device alarmed within him.

“Shit!” Popeye said. “Sam said there was a nigger commandin’ this bunch of Rebels. I can’t believe you guys is scared of some goddamn sambo.”

“That nigger down yonder was Vice-President of the United States,” Sonny Boy reminded them all. “And he’s Ben Raines’s second-in-command. That makes him have some smarts.”

“I don’t like it,” Grizzly said, once more looking through binoculars at the Rebel camp located in the small valley below the ridge. “And there’s something else, too.”

“What?” Popeye asked.

“How come Sam was so goddamn anxious to get rid of us? I never have trusted that slick bastard, noways. I’d like to know what he’s got up his sleeve.”

“I agree,” Sonny Boy said. “We left in a big rush all hepped up and rarin’ to go. Now we’ve all had some time to think about it.” He glanced at Popeye. “Some of us have thought about it, that is. And I don’t like what I’ve been thinkin.’”

“So what are we gonna do?” Skinhead slobbered the question.

“Back off,” Grizzly said, his voice low.

“To where?”

“Let’s head back an’ link up with Plano and his boys. We’ll compare notes about Sam Hartline.”

“How many guys is Plano got?” Popeye asked.

“Three, four hundred. Buck’s runnin’ about two fifty or so. If we was to link up with them, that’d give us more’n a thousand men. Nobody could stop us then.”

About five hundred meters away, two Rebels lay in the timber, watching the warlords through binoculars. They waited until the outlaws had pulled out. Picking up her walkie-talkie, the Rebel pressed the talk button.

“They’re not buying it,” she spoke softly. “They’re pulling back.”

“Keep them in sight and wait until our forward team reports back,” she was told.

They waited in the timber for fifteen minutes. They listened as the forward team, located some five miles east of their position, radioed in.

“They’re all leaving,” the forward team reported. “Heading straight east. Must be five or six hundred bikers and chopper riders and dune buggies and pickup trucks. Never seen such a mess.”

“They’re leaving no one behind?”

“No. They appear to be riding with a destination in mind.”

“They made us,” Cecil said. “They smelled a trap and bugged out.”

“Shit!” his XO summed up all their feelings.

Cecil laughed at his XO’s disgusted one-word summation. “There’ll be plenty of fighting in the near future,” he said.

“I guess so, sir. But when is General Raines going to
do
something?”

“Only Ben knows that. And so far, he’s not talking. But bet on this: he’s worrying ideas around in his head like a dog with a bone.”

“Goddammit!” Ben said, looking at his bare hook. “Stole my bait again.”

Lora looked up as they sat on the bank of a small creek. She smiled at him. “It’s easier to catch them with your hands.”

“For you, maybe. But this is so relaxing. And fun.”

Lora thought about that for a moment, watching as Ben put a fresh worm on the hook. “If it’s so much fun, why do you cuss?”

Ben stuck his pole into the ground and lay back on the bank, laughing.

“Now you’re having fun,” Lora said. “Laying down. But not fishing.”

Ben ruffled the child’s hair. “You think too much, Lora. Be a kid for a while.”

A Rebel stationed some distance behind Ben, in the brush, cleared his throat. A reminder to Ben that no matter where he went, he was never alone. A full squad of Rebels accompanied him whenever he stepped out of the house he was using for a command post.

Worse than being a damned king, Ben thought.

“I don’t know how to be a kid, Ben,” Lora said. After several weeks of Ben trying to get her to call him by his first name, she had finally agreed.

“Yeah, I know, Lora. Someday the fighting will be over. At least, this fighting. And when that’s over, you young people are going back to Georgia. There, you’ll learn to read and write and have fun. That sound okay to you?”

“Whatever you say, Ben.”

Ben could tell she felt some degree of excitement about that, but would not let her feelings show. She’d been through too many disappointments in her young life.

“I promise you it will get better, Lora. I promise.”

“Okay, Ben. Ben?”

“What?”

“There’s a fish on your hook and your pole is out in the middle of the crick.”

Ben jumped up, and in his haste slipped down the bank and fell into the creek, face first. A dozen Rebels came rushing from all directions, weapons at the ready.

Lora sat on the bank and clapped her hands, laughing at Ben’s antics. “Now we’re havin’ fun, Ben!”

Twenty-four

 

“Whats he waiting on?” Georgi Striganov muttered, more to himself than to his officers gathered at his command post.

“Perhaps he’s afraid of us?” a young IPF lieutenant suggested.

Striganov looked at the fresh-faced officer. There, he thought, stands a fool! But Striganov did not like to dress down fellow officers in the presence of brother officers, so he said nothing.

“The man is like an old lobo wolf,” a senior officer said. “He can sense many things the younger wolves have yet to learn.” He looked at the young lieutenant as he said the last.

The young lieutenant flushed.

Striganov hid his smile. No need to personally berate the young man; the major had done it for him, quite well.

“He’s playing a waiting game, sir,” the grizzled, battle-hardened major continued. “Cat and mouse, so to speak.”

“But who is the cat and who is the mouse?” Striganov tossed the question out.

A question no one chose to answer.

“On another matter, sir,” a captain said. “There is something odd going on in Oregon.”

“Odd? With Hartline, you mean?”

“Yes, sir. Our people up there report that Hartline left his base camp for several days. When he returned, he was, well, different.”

“Different? My God, give me something more to go on than different.”

“Well, sir, he’s spending a lot of time with his communications people, for one thing.”

Striganov was immediately suspicious. Sam had not been in radio contact with him, he knew that. “Any idea who he might be contacting?”

“He’s using ham radio equipment with special scramblers. Our people are busy trying to break it down now. But they have pinpointed the location of the returning transmissions. South Carolina.”

Striganov turned in his chair, gazing at nothing. He had known it was bound to happen, someday. And that day had dawned.

Sam Hartline was selling out.

“Something wrong, General?” the major asked.

“Yes,” Striganov replied, his back still to his men. “Sam Hartline is turning on us. It does not surprise me. Disappoints me, yes, but comes as no surprise.”

“Do you wish to send in a K team, General?” the major asked.

“Not yet. Let–s let Sam dig his own grave.”

“A lot of radio between Oregon and South Carolina, General,” Ben was informed.

“Can you make it out?”

“Bits and pieces. We know for certain Hartline is talking with the commander of the Islamic Peoples Army. Not talking to him directly, but the messages are directed to this Colonel Khamsin.”

“So the Hot Wind is beginning to blow,” Ben said. “Any further word from our recon teams?”

“Yes, sir. They’re in place along the border of South Carolina. Teams from Base Camp One are working with resistance fighters. Recon reports everything is shaping up, but they’re not very large in numbers. Not nearly strong enough to try anything head to head with the IPA.”

“How about those outlaws and warlords that pulled out of here?”

“They’re linked up with those outlaws Hartline put between us and the Mississippi. They’re pretty careless about radio security. We can, so far, track every move they make. And … something else, sir. I think, our intelligence people think, Sam Hartline is going to turn on the Russian.”

Ben nodded his head. “It would be like Sam to do something like that. Sam wants on the winning side. Always. What else?”

“Your name keeps cropping up in these radio transmissions, sir. And, sir … General Jefferys has ordered more security around you, at all times.”

“Goddammit!” Ben exploded. “I’ve got a squad around me now. I can’t move without bumping into someone.”

The Rebel said nothing.

Ben cooled down a bit. “I’m not yelling at you, son. Just letting off a little steam in general.”

“Yes, sir.”

“James Riverson will be in charge of your security, sir,” Ben was informed.

“James is getting entirely too goddamned old for this business,” Ben bitched.

The young Rebel wondered how old Ben Raines was. Somewhere around fifty, he thought. He hoped when he was that old he would be as active as Ben.

“Sir? Ike radioed in. His people are getting restless.”

“I’m sure,” Ben said. “And he’s getting too goddamn old for this mess, too.”

Again, the Rebel said nothing. Ike McGowan was like a bull, commanding just about as much respect as Ben Raines.

Suddenly, Ben smiled. The young Rebel watched him closely.

“Let’s go stick some needles into the IPF,” Ben said. He slung on his battle harness and picked up his old Thompson. “Like right now, boy.”

“All right,” Ben told his hurriedly gathered commanders. “Striganov wants us to bring the fight to him. Fine. We’ll do just that. A little at a time. He wants the whole sandwich – we’ll give him crumbs.”

Ike, Cecil, and Dan began smiling. They had known all along that Ben would not stand and slug it out with the Russian. The Russian had the superior numbers.

Ben was going back to his original plan: a dirty little guerrilla war.

“Ike,” Ben said, “send your teams in from the south. Dan, your people will come in from the north. I’ll come in from the east. Cec, once again I’m asking you to stay in reserve.”

Cecil nodded his understanding if not his liking.

Ben glanced at his watch. Noon. “We’ll jump off in twenty-four hours. They’ll be expecting us to strike either at night or at dawn. I’m betting they won’t be expecting us at high noon, broad daylight. Carry short rations. We’ll live off captured IPF supplies and the land. What you won’t be carrying in rations, make it up with explosives and ammo. Until we establish some sort of front, we won’t have any heavy support. So our first objective will be to clear the roads and get some heavy support in behind us. It’s important we all strike at precisely the same time. Within seconds of each other. Good luck; God be with you all. Take off.”

All had noticed that Sylvia was conspicuously absent at the briefing. And all wondered why.

But no one was going to ask.

When the room had emptied, James Riverson came to Ben’s side. The huge Rebel towered over Ben. The two men had been friends for years, since back in ‘88, and there was no military formality between them.

“Risky, Ben,” James said. “Leaving her behind with all the hard evidence we have against her.”

“I think I’m probably doing the same thing Striganov is doing, James.”

“Oh?”

Ben walked to a window and gazed outside. Summer was in full bloom in the wilderness. It was a gloriously beautiful day.

James waited, not verbally pushing Ben. He would get to it when he was ready.

Ben gazed at the beauty of nature now uncontrolled by man’s interference. He turned to look at James. “We’re absolutely certain now that she has met with people from Colonel Khamsin’s IPA?”

“Yes, sir. She was followed on two occasions.”

“But we still don’t know why she was meeting with them, do we?”

“No, Ben, we don’t.”

“All of a sudden she cooled toward me. And I don’t know why. Why in God’s name would she be meeting with representatives of something as odious as the IPA?”

“There again, Ben, I don’t know. But I damn sure don’t trust her.”

“I share your feelings, James.”

“What are you and the Russian doing, Ben?”

Ben’s face hardened. “Letting a traitor dig their own grave.”